


In Too Deep

by bxnsheedunbxr



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, Sexual Content, Swimming, Teasing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4818857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bxnsheedunbxr/pseuds/bxnsheedunbxr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I didn't believe in love at first sight, until I first saw Lucas Friar. He was a townie, hiding a secret, and I knew better than to get involved. Before I knew it... I was In Too Deep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hand It Over

**Author's Note:**

> this is a lucaya story because i'm lucaya af!
> 
> another story im also writing is also an AU and will be a love triangle with maya, it will either be joshaya or lucaya (probably with endgame lucaya)
> 
> and another joshaya story because they are my guilty pleasure ship.
> 
> oh, and in this story, lucas has a little brother called Andy btw
> 
> this AU and characters are quite OOC.
> 
> will be multi-chapter so don't worry i'm not done even if it's a long chapter.

I didn't believe in love at first sight, until I first saw Lucas Friar.

I was giving swimming lessons to little kids when I saw him. Turns out one of the little kids was Lucas's little brother. So, I'd be seeing a lot more of Lucas. And that was just fine with me.

I had a lot going on- a freshman at an elite college, first time away from home, and, oh yeah, roommates with a girl I'd been sent to spy on. I wasn't exactly looking for anything exclusive. Something casual, though, would be great.

But there was nothing casual about my feelings for Lucas.

He was a townie, hiding a secret, and I knew better than to get involved. I was always the sensible one, the peacekeeper.

Before I knew it... I was In Too Deep.

I didn't believe in love, until I first saw Lucas Friar.

I was giving swimming lessons to at-risk kids at the pool on campus when I saw him. He sat on the old-fashioned observation area that was made of the same aquamarine tile, which surrounded the pool. Several rows up, he leaned forward, arms on his thighs, his hands clasped together. He was pretty far away, but I felt his gaze burning into me, watching me as I helped teach kicking skills to the four little kids assigned to me.

He wore a black NYC College polo shirt and jeans. What looked like big work boots were on his feet, though the angle I was at didn't give me the best view. I couldn't tell how tall he was, but his legs seemed to go on forever. His shoulders were broad and, even leaning forward, I could see the strength in them.

I was dying to see the colour of his eyes, but it was just too far away. His hair was brown, and the kind of shine to it that just made me want to run my hands through it. As he leaned forward even more, his hair caught the sun and it shone brightly, making his hair look almost blond.

One of my students, Andy, spluttered and started flailing, his hands coming away from the wall. He went down like a rock. I calmly reached for him and lifted his little body to the surface. When I pulled him up, he looked at me with suspicion, like he knew I was watching the hot guy in the stands and not him.

He'd be right.

I patted Andy's head and gave him a "great job" as I made sure he was grasping the wall again, but my eyes turned back to Black Polo Shirt. There was a little smile playing across his lips and I swore he quirked a brow at me, almost like he knew I inadvertently let Andy go under because I was ogling his long legs and broad shoulders.

He'd be right.

Okay, I couldn't see for sure that he quirked a brow at me... but somehow I just knew that he did.

My heart was beating a little faster and I tried to remember if I'd seen him on campus before today, but I knew I hadn't. I would definitely have remembered him.

"And you'll never forget him," some little melodramatic voice in my head whispered.

Seriously? I don't do thunderstruck. I don't do voices in my head-at least not of the romantic sort. No, just your normal voices, like "would you please stop talking you dumb bitch" while you smiled and nodded as the girl next to you in class droned on.

But this voice, in both the message and tone, was very different.

I'm no cynic, and I'd had a couple of semi-serious boyfriends in high school who I was hot for, but I don't ever remember this dryness in my mouth, this slight tremble in my hands, as I watched a boy watching me.

"Hey, Maya, watch me," Ava, one of my students, said. I turned my attention to my kids and helped them turn on to their backs.

It wasn't my first time teaching kids to swim, but I'd always done it at the country club. There, the mothers watched halfheartedly while gossiping with each other, or flaunting their newest piece of jewelry.

A very different group of mother sat and watched this group of kids. Some were even no-shows. There was no flaunting of any kind.

I'd been at NYC College a mouth. A month of making new friends and checking out the male population and realizing that, yeah, I was probably in over my head academics-wise but I'd work my ass off to make sure my father didn't have anything to bitch about.

I always did what I had to do to keep the peace.

When the lesson finished, I switched the two boys in my group with the two girls in Billy's group at the locker room. They wanted to have integrated groups-all part of the socialization, apparently- but obviously we at NYC played by the rules and didn't allow boys and girls to shower together.

Not that I wasn't pretty sure that was happening on the co-ed floor below mine in the dorm.

My little girls briefly ran under the showers, still in their little-girl swimsuits of bright neon colours, just barely washing off the chlorine. I toweled off and slid yoga pants and a hoodie over my still-wet suit.

The girls would have been ready way before me otherwise, and besides, after I did the mommy-talk thing, I was going to get some real swimming in before I headed to the library and tried to get my head above the homework waters.

When all of my wards were ready, and after we did one last check and found Casey's something or other-as we inevitably did each week- I marched them all out to greet their moms, who weren't allowed in the locker room with the girls. (Again, part of the program, and let's face it, these kids were used to doing without their moms at times. Most times. No helicopter kids, these.)

In the hallway, the boys were waiting-as they inevitably were each week- and I traded back for my boys as we made our way to the meet-and-greet area.

The moms for three of my four kids were there and I did the whole "He's coming along great. Practice having him put his face in the water in the bathtub" thing.

It was all part of our gig. A couple of instructors were doing this for credit. Like, 400-level credit. But apparently they didn't have enough students for that class, or too many kids that signed up for lessons, and needed to hire extra instructors.

I didn't really need the money, though it felt good to earn my own instead of just using the debit card my parents fed, but I knew I was giving swimming lessons to at-risk kids would look good.

And I always did what looked good.

Andy hung with me when all the other mothers had taken their kids and left. "Mom late again, buddy?" I asked him. There was no judgement in my voice- I had none. Or, if I'd had any, it was gone after three weeks of meeting these mothers, who were trying to do what was right for their kids, even though it couldn't have been easy to get the kids to campus, wait around for an hour, then talk to the stupid instructor who was basically just checking off a box. "Interact with childn's parent, giving them meaningful feedback?Check."

"No," Andy said, but he didn't meet my eyes. He'd done that before. We'd only been holding lessons for three weeks and already his mom had flaked three times, showing up ten, twenty even thirty minutes late. And she'd never been in the observation area like most of the moms, watching her kid. She never even partook in the after-lesson debrief with me, just waved for Andy to hurry up, shouting a "thanks" to me from down the hall. I got paid either way, so I didn't really care, but I felt bad for Andy, always running down the hallway while she waited impatiently.

I had no idea about this woman's story. Obviously if her kid was in an at-risk outreach program, there were some issues. But I though about my mom, bringing me to every swim lesson, staying and watching through the whole thing. For years. Right through high school swim meets. Even while practicing law part-time and dealing with my dad's crazy schedule.

"There he is," Andy said, pointing down the hall.

My mind was barely processing the "he" instead of "she" when it went into free fall as I watched the guy in the NYC polo move down the hall toward us, his eyes on Andy.

And then they turned to me.

He was even more gorgeous up close, and as he moved closer still, I felt that hitch again- like I'd gone underwater without first holding my breath.

"That's my brother, Lucas. He's picking me up today, because my mom..." Andy was saying. I got the vitalsL Lucas-brother. Andy might have said more, but by then the guy-Lucas-had reached us.

"You looked great out there, A. Really comfortable in the water. How'd it feel?"

Andy's little chest puffed up. "Good. Better."

Better? Had there been a problem before? Sheesh, some instructor I was.

"That's good. That's really good. See, I told you it would get better."

Andy was nodding, his fair hair wet and shaggy, droplets falling onto the back of his sweatshirt. Billy never did help the boys out with stuff like their hair in the locker room.

"Did you see me go under?" Andy asked, pride in his voice. Like it wasn't me who'd let him slip out of my hands.

"I did. Very to conquer, my man." Lucas said. He wasn't looking at Andy now, but at me. With a look that said he knew exactly how Andy's fear had been conquered.

"Yeah, you were right, Lucas. Nothin' I couldn't handle." The words were spoken in such a way that I knew that was how they'd been sold to Andy.

"This is Maya. My teacher."

I held my hand out, but Lucas had just put his hand-shaking hand on Andy's shoulder. He just nodded in my direction. "Maya," he said slowly. "Thanks for taking such good care of my guy." Sarcasm dripped from his voice.

Andy was puffing up again- obviously loving that he was Lucas's "guy." But I barely noticed; my brain had gone semi-dead when Lucas said my name. His voice was smooth and deep with a slight southern accent. And dark. So, so dark.

In high school, I snuck in into the school pool really late at night, had the place to myself. I did that from time to time, just to get away. I never swam, though- I was too much of a goodie-goodie to break that much of a rule. Plus, the whole safety thing stopped me. But one night, after a particularly galling scene of listening to my father berate some poor flunky on the phone, I did go in.

I dove from the high board in just my bra and panties. No lights were on, and when the water swallowed me up I was cocooned in deep, wet darkness. It was disorienting, scary and exhilarating all at the same time.

That's what it felt like when Lucas said my name.

"I'm supposed to get some information from you?" he asked me. "Like how he's doing? Stuff to work on?"

There was a tiny bit of vulnerability in his voice, which was in contrast to the sheer physical confidence he seemed to exude.

His eyes- green, a bright, lovely shade of green- darted between Andy and myself, and I realized he was uncertain.

"Yes," I said, summoning all my father's bullshitting skills. "Andy is indeed becoming more comfortable in the water, and that is leading to increased confidence in his abilities. I think that our next session will show even more improvement."

Lucas was nodding, but his eyes-so expressive, those green pools, when the rest of his face was impassive-sparked with skepticism.

Yeah, people always knew when my father was bullshitting them, too.

"In the meantime," I pushed on (sadly, my father's daughter), "you could work with Andy on his floating. Easy to do in the rub. A few minutes on his back, then a few on his front, with his face to the side to breathe."

"We don't have a bathtub," Andy said.

I saw Lucas clench the hand that wasn't resting on Andy's shoulder.

"We'll figure something out, buddy," Lucas said. Andy looked up- way up; Lucas had to be six-three- and grinned at his older brother. That grin said Andy truly believed that Lucas was capable of creating a bathtub where none existed.

Hell, maybe he was.

"We need to get going, buddy," Lucas said, turning Andy toward the exit. They started walking away. After a couple of feet, Andy turned and said with his lopsided smile, "Thanks, Maya, see you next time." He waved his little hand, his sweatshirt too large for him, the sleeve almost swallowing him up.

"You bet, Andy," I said. My hand was still raised in a wave when Lucas turned around. His gaze was intense again. My hand froze where it was- midair, mid-wave.

"Thank you," Lucas said so softly I wasn't sure if he'd actually spoken the words or mouthed them. "Maya," he added.

That word I heard. All the way through my body.

I swam laps for an hour. It was longer than what I normally did, and I pushed myself harder. I thought about the studying I should be doing. I thought about my roommates and how we were-finally- starting to gel.

But my mind kept coming back to Lucas. I knew Andy's last name was Bell from my roster. But that didn't necessarily mean Lucas had the same last name. In fact, that would be pretty rare with the kids in this program.

NYC was an elite, Ivy League wannabe school filled with kids of movers and shakers who didn't have quite enough moves and shakes to get their kids into Harvard or Yale.

It was idyllic and ivy-covered (see? they've got nothing on us; our ivy grows just as thick) and small and exclusive. There was nothing but BMW's, Mercedes and other sports cars in the student parking lot.

But the town that surrounded NYC was- in my father's words- a complete shithole.

Crime, poverty, drugs... the Triple Crown of shitholes.

On campus, we didn't see it. And if our power-hungry parents had taught us anything, it was to not see what we didn't want do.

Unless it looked good to do so.

After swimming laps, I walked through the deserted locked room to the far corner and the old-fashioned steam room. I grabbed three clean towels from the bench in front, and made my way into the room I'd turned on before lessons.

I loved this steam room. It was like something out of a move, where, like Ukrainian mafia discussed who was going to be "offed" or something.

I peeled out of my suit, wrung it out, and laid it on the tower tile bench. I wrapped one of the towels around me and spread another one out on the top tile bench, then sat on it. Completing the old Ukrainian man vision in my head, with a good third of it danging in front, almost like a shroud.

Instead of thinking about who needed whacking, I thought again of Lucas. Of how his tall muscular body moved as he's walked down the hall towards me. Of how his hair had been for light and shiny once he'd gotten close. Of how I wished he'd gotten even closer.

I wasn't a total whore, and had been with one boyfriend in high school, but the sight of Lucas's broad shoulders in the black polo, and his tight- I mean tight- ass in those jeans... Well, that sight would get even the goodiest goodie-goodie wondering if she could get away with a quick, self-administered relief session right here, in a university steam room.

I didn't, of course, but God, how my body wanted me to. Exhausted from the laps, further wrung out from the heat and steam, my limbs felt languid and liquid. Like my arms and legs might just blend into the scuzzy old tile that lined the inside of the room.

I lifted my arms to the towel on my head, gently squeezing across my breasts as I did. My legs shifted. I needed to get out of here, take a cold shower. The place was always empty this late into the evening, but still, it wouldn't do for Maya Hart, daughter of Shawn Hunter, political consultant extraordinaire, to be caught diddling herself in a steam room.

Hmmm... but maybe in the shower?

I rose from the bench, the hard tile having made little dents in my ass and thighs, even through the towel.

I wrapped the towel from my had-not as sweat and steam- drenched as the towel I'd worn- around my body. I took the other two, and my swimsuit, and left the room, careful to turn the room off at the control panel. Nobody seemed to mind- or notice?- that I was here this late, but leaving a steam room on all night would probably curb that.

I walked out of the room, turned toward my locker and froze.

Lucas was staring straight at me. He seemed as startled as I was, but recovered faster. A slow- God, so sexy- smile spread across his face.

"I'm here to collect the towels," he said. Then the smile turned just a little deadly and I wondered if I was about to get whacked by some fictional Ukrainian mafia boss. He nodded at my body, at my hand that clung to my barely closed towel.

"Hand it over."


	2. I'm Not What You Need

"What are you doing?" I asked, my hand clutching a bit tighter. Not so much to hang on to the towel, but as if I could cover how my body was reacting to seeing him here after I'd just been thinking about him. And about touching myself. And about how much better it would be if he were the one doing the touching.

"I'm gathering up the towels," he said. He pointed in the general vicinity of my boobs. "And I need that one." The smirk was gone from his face now, but it was still in his eyes.

"Are you supposed to even be in here?" I thought about the situation, about my options. I was in a locker room- in a towel - by myself with a strange man. I should be thinking about exit strategies, where was the nearest door, could anybody hear my scream, that sort of stuff.

But I wasn't. Somehow I knew on some gut level that I wasn't in any danger from Lucas. At least not that kind of danger. Because-let's be real- Lucas was dangerous, all right.

"What's your last name?" I asked, because it seemed important to know that right now. Not that standing in front of someone I'd just met (and barely, at that!) wasn't important stuff too. But... yeah... "What your last name?" I repeated. "Is it Bell?"

There was a flash in his eyes that I couldn't read... something that made him pissed off. He grunted and broke eye contact. Broke the spell I'd been under, and I was able to move towards my locker, a row over from where we stood.

He didn't follow me, and as I turned the corned around the aisle I looked back to see him, indeed gathering up the dirty towels that hadn't quite made it in the large laundry cart.

"No. Not Bell," he said. "Bad enough that that asshole's name is something Andy has to live with."

I opened my locker and gathered my clothes, setting them on the bench, not really knowing how this was going to work. Should I just quickly throw them on and hope Lucas stayed in the next aisle over? Keep the towel on until he left? What if he had a bunch of work to do in here and I'd be sitting in my towel for an hour?

What the hell, why was I the one working around him?

"Shouldn't you have to wait until everyone's out before you clean in here? Isn't this... I don't know... against the law, or the rules, or something?" I hitched my towel up higher around my chest, even though he was still on the other side of the lockers.

"I yelled in. There was no answer. When I saw the light on in the steam room, I was about to leave. That's when you walked out."

"Oh."

"Are you near your clothes?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead, I won't bother you. I need to do some measurements in the steam room, but I wanted it to cool down a little bit first. Thought I'd help out with the towels while I waited."

"Ummm..."

There was quiet, then he said, "I'll step out. Just yell when it's okay to come back in."

This was stupid. The man was just doing his job.

Ah, now I got why he was wearing a NYC shirt. Not so much out of collegiate pride as, well, a uniform.

And suddenly I didn't want him to think of me as a stuck-up New York Normal. (Which I knew was what the townies called us co-eds. I learned that, like, my second day here, though I wasn't sure what it meant.)

"You can stay. Do your work. Just stay over there."

"Will do," he said. I started to change, quickly at first, then more slowly, as if daring-willing?- him to impatiently see what was taking me so long.

Yeah, pretty passive-aggressive, but I wasn't above a little p/a behavior. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was passive, with minimal aggressive.

"You about done?" he said loudly. "I've got what I needed."

I pulled my dry hoodie over my tee, shoving the wet-ish hoodie and toga pants in my backpack. I wished there was a full-length mirror on this side of the room, but I knew what I looked like- typical college girl in jeans, tee, and sweatshirt. I put my long blonde hair up into a messy bun, fastening the wet mass with a band.

Typically, I would have taken a long shower, but I wasn't feeling like my typical self.

"Yeah, I'm good," I said, and walked around the aisle.

He was writing something onto a small tablet, and he was holding a tape measure, which he slid into his back pocket. The door to the steam room stood open. "me too," he said. "I got what I need." He looked me up and down. I swear to God I almost felt as naked before him as when I'd been wearing nothing but a towel.

"Well... almost everything I need," he added, and the words burned through me.

"Why did you need to measure the steam room?" I asked, ashamed at how rough my voice sounded.

"I'm retiling it. Starting next week, but I needed to get measurements for materials."

"Will it be usable while your doing it?"

He shook his head, that silky dark hair moving with him. I wondered if it would feel as soft as it looked. "No. I'll work during the nights, so the locker room will still be in use, but the steam room will be closed."

"For how long?"

He shrugged, looked at the figure he'd written down. "At least two weeks. Maybe longer. Depends how many hours I can put in on it each night."

"Oh," I said, disappointed. I really loved that steam room.

"The sauna will still be available."

I'd used the sauna, on the other side if the locker room, twice. But once I'd discovered the steam room, it just wasn't the same.

"But it's not the same," Lucas said, echoing my thoughts.

"I'll survive," I said. I hoisted my backpack up higher. "Well... um... good to meet you. Andy's a great kid." He nodded at that. There was nothing left to say. And yet I couldn't leave.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"In Creyts. It's by-"

"I know where it is," he said, a tiny bit defensively.

"So...okay..."

"You're going to walk there by yourself? Across campus? At this time of night?

"Yes." I did it a few nights a week, when I'd swum late, and steamed even later. I even studied here at times, in one of the classrooms in the old women's IM building. "It's fine. I do it all the time."

"You shouldn't," he said, and moved from where stood to come and stand beside me. He effortlessly took my backpack from me and slid it across one of his broad shoulders.

"It's perfectly safe," I said, following him now as he started moving on without me. "What are you doing?"

He turned around and looked at me. "I'm walking you home," he said, then turned and kept walking.

Luckily I caught up to him just in time to hear him said, "Friar. My last name is Friar. Lucas Friar."

We walked to my dorm in silence. At first it felt like awkward silence to me, but then it just became... comfortable. Or more like comforting.

I walk this campus in the late evenings a few nights a week. And I don't feel unsafe, but then again, I'd never felt quite as secure as I did now, with Lucas's tall, strong body beside me. And that slight sense of danger, the feeling that as composed and controlled as he seemed to carry himself, he could unleash that big body with immense power at any time.

I admit it, I thought about all that strength and power unleashed on me. In a good way.

We passed people, most of whom I didn't know. NYC was a small school, and you eventually knew a good a portion of the student body, but I was a freshman, and had only been here a month. If I didn't have class with them, or they didn't live on my floor, I probably didn't know them.

The guys we passed looked at Lucas with curiosity. Lucas didn't belong amongst the NYC boys in their skinny jeans, knit beanies, and impossibly fashionable eyewear.

And Lucas made them all look like just that... boys.

The girls we passed looked at Lucas with something more than curiosity. Hunger. Who could blame them?

I certainly felt him next to me-felt that strong, big body so close- even though we never touched. Not even the brushing of arms, though I admit I did come close to faking a stumble so I could lean into him.

But we reached my dorm with no stumbles- faked or otherwise- and I turned to him. "Here we are," I said, like an idiot.

He nodded, looking up at the four-story building. I didn't want to leave him, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Have you worked at NYC long?" I asked.

"Don't," he said, turning to face me full on. "You don't need to do that with me."

"Do what?"

"The small talk. The stuff you're doing with all the guys you're meeting. 'What's your major?' and 'Where'd you go to prep?' Don't do that with me. I'm not like them."

There was an intensity in his stance, in his face, though it was too dark to see if it showed in his eyes. My guess is it did.

We were standing to the side, at the front of the dorm, out of the lights from the doorway. I liked being in the shadows with him, but I also liked looking at his face. Too much.

"What are you, then?" I asked. "If you're 'not one of them'?"

"I'm..." He leaned toward me, took a tiny step closer. Not touching, but God, so close. I couldn't smell him and I wanted to, wanted to know his scent. Then something stopped him. He moved no further. In fact, he took a step back. I almost cried out for him to come back even though it was mere inches. He ran a hand through that dark-blond hair that perfectly cut, but suddenly messed-up, which made him even hotter, gorgeous hair. "I'm..." he began again. But his voice had changed; there was almost resignation now. "I'm not what you need," he finished.

He turned and walked away from me.


	3. Got It Bad For a Townie

"So, like Matt Damon In Good Will Hunting janitor or you know, just skeezy, leering-at-college-girls janitor?" my roommate Riley asked.

"The Matt Damon kind, for sure," I said. We were sitting on our beds, facing each other across the small room.

"So, secret genius and all that? Deeply, deeply misunderstood?"

I shrugged and pulled one of my decorative pillows my mom had bought me for my room onto my lap, as if I needed protection. "Probably now secret genius." I thought about the awareness in Lucas's eyes, and what seemed like intelligence. But how the hell would I know that? "At least I don't think so."

"But big, you said? And kind of brooding?"

"Jesus, Riles, he wasn't Heathcliff or anything." Was he?

Riley flipped onto her back stretched her long arms over her head. We were the same height-on the tall side- but Riley had less curves than me. A fact we both hated. She was in leggings and a T-shirt, both hugging her body. She wore her chestnut hair, straightened, on top of her head in a high pony-tail. Most of the time she left it wavy.

We didn't know each other before we became roommates, but I'd know about each other our whole lives. Our fathers had been deeply entwined with each other when Riley and I were born. And perhaps were again, if my father's instructions on keeping an eye on Riley were any indication.

For the first week, we warily circled each other, knowing we'd be placed together by our fathers, neither of us knowing why.

The second weekend here, we'd gone to a party, gotten a little drunk, and done True Confessions back in our room, where we both agreed to disregard any directives coming form out fathers about each other, and just relax. Be friends. Real friends.

Which was easier for her to make-she didn't have as much contact with her father anymore- she'd been ignoring his directives for years. Had taken great pleasure in it lately, in fact.

Not quite so easy for me, though.

"Poor Maya," Riley said, teasing in the voice. "A campus full of respectable, father-approved guys, and you fall for the ne'er-do-well townie."

"I'm not 'falling for' anybody," I said quickly.

Riley then glanced my way and made a half-snort sound, then turned back to stare up at the ceiling.

"And we don't know that he's a ne'er do well," I added. I wasn't even sure what a ne'er do well was- Riley was always throwing out terms like that- but I figured it wasn't good.

"Right. 'Cause all guys at his age, with the world open to them, become janitors." She had a point. "I wonder if it's some kind of community service or something. Was he wearing an orange jumpsuit?" Riley said, laughing now at her own wit, slight as it was.

I didn't bother telling her that he wore jeans and a black polo... and wore them so well. Instead, I threw my pillow at her and said, "Oh, shut up, already." Which made her laugh all the more.

"What's going on?" Izzy, out suitemate, said as she walked through the door adjoining our rooms. She had a sweatshirt on, and smelled like she'd just come from the outdoors.

Isadora Smackle would not have felt afraid walking across campus at night. Izzy would kick anybody's ass here, faculty included and so would I-well maybe not faculty.

"Our poor Maya had it bad for a townie," Riley said. I wished I had the pillow back, so I could throw it at her again. Harder this time.

A look of distaste crossed Isadora's face. Which was rich, since she was a townie herself, just a different town.

Isadora came from a rough section of Queens and was at NYC on a scholarship. She and Riley bristled each other frequently, but there was also a grudging respect for each other.

I, of course, was the peacekeeper when I had to be.

"Seriously?" Isadora said, looking at me. She moved to my desk and sat down. "Please tell me Riley is full of shit." She turned to Riley and added with a slight smirk, "As usual."

"Haha," Riley deadpanned. "Not this time. Beautiful Maya, who could have any guy she wants, is going to slum it with hoodlum."

"I don't know which part of that sentence to take issue with first," I said. I looked at Isadora. "Basically, it's all bullshit."

Isadora studied me, and I didn't like it.

Riley and I had grown up in spotlights, and Riley in particular had become world-savvy early on. But Isadora had us both beat when it came to life.

Isadora had lived. Though she was careful not to tell us much about it. It was as if she was reinventing herself at NYC, cutting all ties to her previous life.

Part of me wished I could do that too, and so I admired Isadora. But I was also worried about her.

There was a... desperateness... about how badly she wanted to fit in. I'd watched her study how Riley and I dressed and acted. It wasn't Single White Female. She didn't want to be us. But she didn't want to be herself, either.

"All bullshit? Maya? Really? Beautiful? Check. Can get any guy you want? Check." I opened my mouth to object, but Izzy raised a hand to stop me. "Get over yourself. Just because you don't seem to want any of the guys we've met so far, doesn't mean you couldn't have any one of them if you so much as crooked a finger."

"That's not true," I said, but they ignored me.

"So, that leaves 'ready to slum it with a hoodlum.' What do you say, Maya? Is it a check?" There was teasing is Izzy's voice. I looked at her, ready to throw back some trash, but couldn't. I looked at Riley, who was also smiling, but her grin faded when she saw my face.

"Oh, shit," Izzy said, her teasing voice now gone. "It is a check. Isn't it? You're ready to hope in bed... with a townie?" The distaste in her voice was obvious.

That was the thing about Isadora-she was a poor scholarship student, but in many ways was a bigger snob than Riley or I ever were.

"I...I just met him," I said. I'd hoped to have more conviction in my voice, but it came out on kind of a whisper.

"Oh dear God," Riley said in her overblown, put-upon way.

Riley and Izzy weren't wrong. I was what is considered classically beautiful- not that I did anything to look this way, other than have good genes, apparently.

And at the parties we'd gone to since arriving, and dorm functions, the boys did gravitate my way early on.

But there was...something... about Riley that made people want to spin in her orbit. It must have bee what attracted her father to her mother. Riley had it.

And Isadora, well, I don't know what Isadora did for guys before NYC, but her beautiful-genius look attracted better-and more- guys than she was looking for but they were all decent-no skaters, wannabes or any bad guys.

And, like me, neither of them had found a guy here yet who sparked any interest for them.

Lucas Friar.

Even thinking about him sent a shudder through me. One that my roommates easily deciphered.

"Jesus, Maya," Isadora said as she rose from the chair and made her way to the doorway and back to her room. "With all these rich pretty boys here?" She was past the door now, but I could still hear her as she said, "Sounds like someone's working out a little rebellion issue."

I looked over at Riley, who quirked a questioning eyebrow at me.

"That's not it," I said, though I wasn't sure I believed myself.

"That's too bad," Riley said, and hoisted herself from the bed and made her way to the bathroom. "Because that would be over and done with fairly quickly, with no broken hearts."

She closed the door behind her and I was left with my thoughts. Startled to think that maybe Isadora was right.

And scared to death that Riley was more right than Izzy.

At the next swim lesson, there was no Lucas. And no Andy's mother, either. Somebody had dropped him of, but I hadn't seen them.

The lesson went well. Andy seemed much better at putting his head in the water. And somebody had obviously been working with Jessica, because she was turning into a little fish.

I hoped that these kids had the opportunity to get to a pool after the lessons ended. It would be a shame for them to just start to become acclimated to the water, then not get in a pool again for years.

It was already too cool for outdoor swimming, and there were no lakes or public beaches in the town that I knew of. Maybe there was a Y or something.

I kept myself from asking Andy who had dropped him of, but I noticed he did look up into the observation area a few times with expectation in his eyes, only to be disappointed.

And yeah... so did I.

And I hate to admit it, but while the girls ran through the shower, I took a little extra time and ran a brush through my wet hair and took it out of it's ponytail, even though I'd be heading right back to the pool to swim laps.

Unless I had a better offer.

But no. No Lucas to pick up Andy. Instead, Andy slowly walked forward when a guy, who definitely wasn't Lucas, sauntered down the hallway. He was Lucas's age and almost as tall as him, but this guy didn't have the strength and width across the shoulders that Lucas did. He had darker hair than Lucas and had much darker skin as well. And this guy seemed like maybe he hadn't owned a come or a couple of years, though he looked clean enough. He had on a jean jacket and jeans, with shockingly white Nikes. Like, maybe he'd come straight here from the shoe store, they were so white and unsullied.

""Scruffy" was the word that came to mind looking at him. Cute in an edgy way, but not with any of the sheer beauty of Lucas Friar.

"Ready, champ?" the guy asked Andy. Andy nodded and left my side.

Nobody had gone over any kind of protocol on pickup with me, and I had this momentary flash of Andy being abducted by some unknown thug .

But Andy seemed to be expecting said thug. Still... I put my hand on his little shoulder. "Do you know this guy?" I asked Andy.

Andy looked up at me with confusion. "Yeah. That's Zay." Like, I should totally know Zay.

Zay was looking me up and down, and I wished I hadn't taken any extra time with my appearance. The knowing grin that spread across his face said he knew whom I was expecting to show up for Andy.

"Lucas is tied up right now," he said. "I'm getting Andy for him. Right, Kid?"

Andy nodded and moved away from me, to Zay's side

I probably should have asked more questions, taken Zay's license number down or something, but I didn't. I just let Andy go with Zay.

There were no questions from Zay to Andy about how it went, or what to work on. Zay was pulling his phone and doing something on it as they walked away from me.

Andy had been the last kid to be picked up, so all the other parents and instructors were gone, back in the locker room.

This wave of...panic...came over me, and I raced down the hall. "Just one second," I yelled, and Zay and Andy turned to me. "I...I forgot to give Andy his assignment for next week," I said, though I had already talked about it with Andy while we'd been waiting.

Zay made an impatient wave with his hand, then kept texting, while I pulled Andy to the side, away from Zay.

I knelt down to Andy's six-year-old size and said very quietly, " Andy, were you expecting Zay to pick you up? Did your mother tell you you'd be going home with him? Or was it a surprise?"

"No. My mom didn't tell me Zay would be here," he said, and I felt another wave of panic. Crap, what the hell was I supposed to do now? Call the cops? Demand we all wait until Andy's mom could be notified?

A tiny bit of irritation crept in that I was being put in this position. I was a college freshman, alone for the first time. I was supposed to be the irresponsible one, out whooping it up/

And here I was wondering if I was caught up in a child abduction case.

"Lucas told me Zay would pick me up," Andy said. "Not my mom. My mom is...she's...gone away."

I didn't know what that meant in this kid's vernacular. Heaven? Prison? With the kind of life these kids lived, it could be either.

"But she's coming back," he added with vehemence. "She's coming back," he said more quietly, as if convincing himself.

"I'm sure she is," I said, though I wasn't sure at all. "So, Lucas told you Zay would be picking you up? You're sure?" He nodded, his wet hair sticking up at the back. I used my hand to tame the wild spot at the back of his head. "Okay, then, let's get you back to Zay."

Andy didn't seem to remember that I had said I wanted to give him instructions, and Zay was still texting away. "All set," I said to Zay as Andy started leading the way. Zay started following Andy, then turned back and looked over his shoulder at me.

"Thanks, Maya," Zay said, then continued to follow Andy down the hall.

"No problem," I said, though they were now beyond hearing range.

I turned back towards the locker room. As I was walking I realized that neither I nor Andy had mentioned my name to Zay, and yet he knew it.

That thought sent a small, sick thrill through me.


	4. Looking For Some Inspiration

I swam hard, cutting through the water like it was silk, feeling my muscles stretch and burn, but in a good way.

And I took a long time in the steam room, savoring every moment , knowing it might be the last time I used it for several weeks.

Then I left the room. Okay, yes, I wrapped my towel very loosely around me. And, yes, there were some strategic parts that I let the towel...accidentally...uncover. I left the room and turned to find...not Lucas. But somebody else.

"Riley? What are you doing here?"

She shrugged, like she hung out in locker rooms all the time, when I was willing to bet some money Riley had found a way to ace gym in high school without ever once seeing the inside of a locker room.

"I was on this side of campus and thought you might want to walk home together."

I eyed her suspiciously. "What were you doing on this side of campus at night?" I made my way to my row and down to my locker, throwing my wet suit onto the bench in front of it.

Riley sat on the bench a few lockers down, looking around, almost in fascination. (Yeah, this girl had never been in a locker room, for sure.)

"Um... I was..." Then she shrugged, giving up all pretenses. "So, is he here? Is he still in the steam room, totally wiped out from all the sweaty sex?"

"Yeah, 'walk home together' my ass."

She gave me one of her "so sue me" sigh and shoulder lift combinations, which I had come to know very well in the past month.

"He's not here. Didn't show at all. For Andy," I added, but Riley's smirk proved I didn't fool her.

Funny, I had resented her my whole life, without even knowing her. I was prepared to dislike her on sight... and I did. But a month later, I could read her like a book, as much as anyone could ever read Riley.

She read me much better. But then, I was pretty much an open book, whereas Riley had lots of chapters written in foreign languages, where you might make out a word or two, but the whole was confusing.

"Well, shit. I came all the way over here for nothing. I thought even if I didn't get a glimpse of Mr. Trouble, I'd at least get to see your afterglow."

"Nope. Sorry to disappoint."

Riley did some stuff on her phone while I showered and changed. I didn't bother drying my long hair, just toweled it well and brushed it out. It wasn't cold enough yet to freeze it on the walk across campus. Plus, I had one of the ubiquitous beanies to wear if I needed it.

"It's kind of creepy in here, so deserted," Riley said as I packed up my backpack and we made our way to the door. I threw my towels in the large hamper as we passed it, and I thought of Lucas collecting random towels the last time I was here.

"Deserted, yes, but I don't think in a creepy way. More of a peaceful way," I said as we made our way out of the locker room, past the empty classrooms where I sometimes studied.

But there would be no studying tonight. It was Thursday, and Riley, Izzy and I only had one class on Fridays, and it wasn't until eleven. In fact, it was the only class we shared- a Humanities class taught by a visiting instructor.

So, on Thursday nights we got made up-using much effort to create a totally effortless look- and went to some party or another.

"And you're allowed to swim alone like that? With no one around? Seems like a big liability issue."

Riley's father had made a mint in lawsuits before entering the political world. Much as Riley would hate hearing it, she had a brain much like her father. She was scary smart, never needing to study and, though it was early in the semester, it looked like she would four-point.

And, also like her father, there seemed to be a bit of a control-freak streak in Riley- a little bit self-destructive too.

Or so I had been told. And that was why I was here, with Riley, as her roommate.

"Technically, it's an open swim time, and there is someone on duty, but it's usually a guy and he uses the men's locker room-obviously. The women who swim here tend to be older-faculty, I guess-and they do it in the mornings. The locker room is pretty much mine after the swim lesson kids leave."

We walked out of the building and turned toward our dorm. "I guess most students use the newer IM building. I hear that's packed all the time." I looked up at the older building, covered in-you guessed it-ivy. It was much smaller than the new building, and on an inconvenient side of campus, but it had great character, and it wasn't very a bevy of "notice me" students pretending to work out. It had cred, this building.

As we neared the corner, a car pulled up beside us and the driver's window lowered.

"Hey, little girls, how about some candy," the driver said.

We didn't look in their direction, just kept walking, although Riley did flip them the bird over her shoulder.

The car crept along beside us and I heard, "Maya."

I knew that voice. Even after only meeting once, I knew how he said my name.

I turned, and Riley stopped with me. The driver was Zay, and he was the one who'd made the candy comment, but Lucas was leaning over him from the passenger seat so that I could see him. Or so he could see me.

"Get in, we'll give you a ride."

"Umm, that's-"

"Thanks, that would be great," Riley said, grabbing my arm and heading around the car to the passenger side.

It was an older car, and, like, souped up or something, though I don't know much about cars. It was dark, but I could tell the car was candy-apple red and was lovingly polished. It was also a two-door and the kind you go into the back by folding down the front seat forward. Lucas stepped out of the car, held the door, and pressed the seat up, motioning me into the back. I climbed in, waiting for Riley to climb in next to me. Lucas held out his hand for Riley. "Hey, I'm Lucas Friar."

"Riley Matthews. Maya's roommate." They shook hands, and I waited for Lucas to feel the spark, the fire, that seemed to emanate from Riley. But he held on to her hand and steered her to the front, then climbed into the back seat with me.

"Help Zay navigate, will you, Riley?" Lucas said as he pulled the front seat back into position. "Zay, Riley. Riley, Zay. Hey, Zay and Riley," Lucas said, and I smiled.

Zay and Riley did not. Riley gave Zay her "don't even think about it" look and Zay shot back a "you wish" glare.

Lucas grinned and sat back in the seat next to me.

Riley was obviously taking one for the team, and being an excellent wingwoman, because the way she looked at Zay- and she looked him up and down completely- said she'd rather be anywhere than next to him in a car that he was driving.

"Our dorm is the other way," Riley said when Zay took a left at the next corner, taking us away from campus and into Schoolport proper.

"Who said we were heading to your dorm?" Zay said, though he didn't look at her.

I could hear-feel-Riley's sigh, but I didn't care. Because I could also feel Lucas's presence next to me.

"Hey," he said in nearly a whisper.

"Hi," I whispered back, then ducked my head, embarrassed by my breathlessness. There was no disguising my desire from my voice.

I felt his finger on my chin, lifting my face, tilting it toward his. I looked up, met his green eyes.

"Hi," he said, more firmly this time, and with such a soft, sweet smile that I felt it shimmer all the way through me.

"Hi," I said, more sure of myself this time. I was not alone in this. He felt it too.

"Do you need to get back to your dorm?" he asked.

I glanced at Riley's back and saw just the tiniest of headshakes from her, although she didn't say a word.

I'd owe her big time for tonight- a price I was more than willing to pay.

"No. We don't need to get right home," I said, Lucas's finger still on my chin. He nodded, then took his hand away, but not before he gently placed the finger on my bottom lip.

"Good," he said softly. Then, more loudly, "Zay, let's take a drive to the west side. I'm looking for some inspiration."

"You got it," Zay said, and roared the engine as we headed to the other side of Schoolport.

And I wondered why Lucas needed to be inspired.

And I hated to admit it, but I desperately wanted part of that inspiration.


	5. He's Got Your Number, All Right

We drove for a while, past campus, past the nice area of downtown (small as it was), through the sketchy area of downtown (bigger), and to the downright scary area of the small city.

"God, this town is a total shithole," Riley remarked. She said the exact words my father had told me when he'd dropped me off;"Stay on campus, Maya. This town is a shithole."

There was the same amount of judgement in both their voices.

"Well, not all of us were born with silver spoons," Zay said to Riley.

"Only half of a silver spoon. And it doesn't make the town any less of a shithole...asshole. What kind of car is this, anyway? I feel like I'm in a bad '70's cop show."

"This is a 1970 Dodge Charger," Zay said with obvious pride. "Restored to its original glory. An American classic."

"Yeah, a classic, all right... classic case of bad taste in cars."

And they were off. The verbal volleys flying fast and furiously between them. I'd heard Riley reduce guys to stammering idiots with her quick acid tongue, but Zay gave it right back to her.

Lucas smiled listening to them. "Fun with Zay and Riley," he said quietly to me. I returned his smile, stunned by the brilliance of his, the absolute transforming power of his smile, from broody tough guy to- dare I say- sweet.

"You have the most gorgeous smile," he whispered.

Riley and Zay were still talking up front, but their banter became white noise, and I felt the cocooning power of being alone with Lucas in Zay's back seat.

"I was just thinking the same thing about you," I said, then wished I hadn't. I grimaced at my stupidity.

"Don't," he said. "Don't ever regret telling me the truth." His voice was serious, the smile faded.

"I wont'," I said, meaning it. Somehow I knew I could tell Lucas anything and he wouldn't think I was a clueless freshman.

"How old are you?" I asked. I knew he was older than me, but I didn't know by how much.

"Twenty-one. You?"

"Eighteen." He sighed what sounded like relief. "Almost nineteen," I added. "I was old for my class." I didn't add that my father wanted me to be in the same graduating year as Riley, so, even though I technically could have started school a year earlier, he'd waited. Never mind that we weren't even in the same school district that Riley's mom lived in.

My father-the puppet master even all those years ago. Did he really see this happening- Riley and I being roommates- so far in advance? My bet was yes.

"So, you can buy for us," Riley said from the front seat, and I realized that though I had tuned them out, she had not done the same to Lucas and me.

"We can," Zay said. "You ladies want to get wasted?"

"No," I said at the same time Riley said, "Yes."

Seconds later, Zay pulled up in front of a liquor store-a very shady-looking liquor store-and hopped out, leaving the car running.

Riley turned and looked at me, then at Lucas. Really looking him over, but not in a come-on kind of way. Riley and I had our issues, but she had a streak of loyalty in her that ran deep.

We'd only been roommates a week, and Riley had locked horns with Izzy almost that entire time, when Riley and I overheard a couple of girls talking trash about Izzy behind her back.

Riley called them out, intimidated the crap out of them. When I asked Riley about it later. she just shrugged and said, "I can tell Izzy she dresses like a poser, but those two bitches better steer clear." I just shook my head at her logic. "Maya," she said, "she's ours. Izzy, that is. And we take care of our own." To her, it was as simple as that.

"You're right," she said now as she turned from Lucas back to me. "Totally smoking hot." She turned back in her seat, facing the front, smirking at the position she'd put me in. "Too bad his friend is such a troll."

Lucas turned to me with a grin, and quirked a brow.

"I didn't say that," I said. Riley did a fake choke/cough/"bullshit" from the front. Lucas just smiled wider.

And moved closer to the middle of the seat. He patted the space between us and I moved to crawl right onto his lap, but I stopped myself. But the hungry look in his eye told me he wouldn't mind if I did.

So caught up in being close to Lucas, I started when Zay opened the car, handed a brown paper bag to Riley, and got in.

He roared off while Riley dug into the bag.

She pulled two beers out and handed them over the seat to us. Lucas took them both, twisted the lids, and handed one to me.

"Rolling Rock?" Riley said. "Seriously? They didn't have Sam Adams, or an IPA or something?"

"Big beer connoisseur at eighteen, are ya?" Zay said.

"I've had a few," Riley said, using the haughty voice she'd first used with me. For about a day.

"Nothing wrong with good old Rolling Rock," Zay said, taking the bottle Riley handed him and taking a large gulp. "Beside, it's about half the price of that fancy piss."

"I would have paid," Riley said.

The car slowed at a red light and Zay looked at Riley. "Let's get this straight right now. I don't take money from NYC Normals. Got it?"

I waited for Riley's come back, but she just stared at Zay for a second. "Whatever," she finally said, and took a drink from her own beer.

Zay took another gulp and let out a large burp as the light turned to green and we rolled farther away from campus to the other side of town.

"Oh, that's attractive," Riley said to Zay's belch.

"Like I give a shit what you think."

"You owe me, Maya." Riley said.

We rode in silence until Riley asked, "Just why do townies call us NYC Normals, anyway?"

"You really want to know?" Zay said, taking a glance at Riley.

"I asked, didn't I?"

I stiffened, waiting. I had a feeling we wouldn't want to hear this.

"You're all the same. You're all lemmings. Normal NYC jacket. Normal Uggs. Normal leggings or designer jeans. Normal short, cropped hair because you're trying to stand out. Nothing original, nothing unique, nothing..." He let the rest of his description fade away as he looked Riley over once again. Not one thing on Zay's list held true for Riley.

She was wearing this cool vintage Nehru jacket that I'd coveted the moment I saw her hang it in her closet. Though I'd probably never wear it even if I'd owned it. She also had on an older type of pants called painter's pants. I have no idea where she found them, but they were boxy and baggy and hung off her curves in a very flattering way. A filmy print peasant blouse under the jacket, and old-style white Chuck Taylors (not the cute new coloured ones) on her feet. Long, brown hair that fell to the middle of her back, straightened.

She raised a brow at Zay, daring him to eat his words.

"Same normal Bimmer or Audi in the parking lot." Riley opened her mouth to argue, but Zay quickly finished with, "When you're allowed to have cars in the parking lot, second semester."

"Oh, so, so wrong, on all counts." Riley said what was obvious to all of us in the car, even those who had only met her tonight.

"Same normal Momma's Little Angel," Zay said, trying to make a last throw onto the dartboard of Riley.

A bark of laughter came from Riley, sounding harsh, even for her. "Strike three, asshole. And you are ouuuuut."

Yes, the NYC Normal label would never apply to Riley. And in a weird way, it was too bad, because Riley, on some level, did not want to stand out. Did you want to draw attention to herself. She would have loved to blend in, be a Normal in the sea of NYC Normals.

But it just wasn't in her to do so. And I think that killed her. It reminded her that maybe she was in fact her mother's daughter. And that probably killed her even more- destined to stand out, be the center of attention.

But me? I looked down at myself. NYC Jacket. Leggings. Uggs... My hair wasn't short and cropped, but other that than... I definitely fit the description perfectly.

I definitely fit the mold on the outside. But what was more, I knew I adhered to what Zay was really saying- there was no substance. I had followed the trends inhigh school. I was following them here at NYC. I didn't want to stand out, not in a "what the hell is she wearing?" way, and knew enough to know how not to.

And the car? Well, a sleek blue Audi RS4 had been promised to me, as long as Riley and I stayed out of trouble our entire freshman year. Or at least didn't get caught or end up on YouTube or something.

I was naturally assumed that I would not do any of those things.

As for the Momma's Little Angel? It galled me, but yeah, I was. At least in comparison to my older sister Alexis , who was what passed in our family for a wild child, though in reality, she wasn't much of one. And my younger brother Gray, who was beginning to bristle at my mother's grooming of his future.

Although I hated that it mattered, it was important to me to be in my mother's good graces, to have her... notice me, I guess.

Lucas was looking over at me. Of course he'd know I was the embodiment of the "lemming" Zay had described.

"Zay's full of shit," Lucas said softly.

"No I'm not. They're so-"

"Zay's full of shit," Lucas said again, loudly, firmly.

Zay finally got it. Perhaps because he had Riley sitting next to him, visually negating everything he was saying. "Ah, sorry, Maya. I didn't mean..." He couldn't finish. It was a lie. He had meant it. And what's more, he was absolutely right.

We all drank our beer and Zay drove us to a deserted-looking area. He turned the car so we were parallel to a long cement wall that was covered in graffiti. H e put the car in park and cut the engine.

"Riley, would you please open your door and let me out?" Lucas asked.

Riley looked around the desolate area, but did as Lucas asked, leaning forward in her seat so the back could go up. Lucas got out then held his hand out to me. "Come one," he said.

I took his hand. It was big and cold from holding his beer. I wiggled my way out of the car.

Riley lowered the seat and looked like she wanted to get out. Zay placed a hand on her arm. "Let's stay here and make a dent on this beer," he said. She looked up at me, silently asking if I was okay being alone with Lucas.

I nodded and gave her a look- was she okay being alone with Zay? She gave a long-suffering sigh and nodded.

Yeah, I would owe her big. I saw a month of doing her laundry in my future.

Lucas shut the door behind me, keeping hold of my hand. I trailed behind him as he rounded the hood of the car and took the keys from Zay, who handed them to Lucas through the window, which he then rolled back up.

We went around to the back of the car and Lucas unlocked the trunk. He had to let go of my hand to rummage around. "Umm, you might want to not look in here," Lucas said. Which, of course, made me want to look in the trunk.

"Dead body?" I said, then wished I hadn't. Let's face it, I didn't know anything about Lucas Friar other than he had a brother named Andy Bell and he was going to be retiling my beloved steam room. And Zay? Well, for all I knew, there could be a dead body in Zay's trunk.

I turned away, looking at the wall that ran along what appeared to be some kind of freeway barrier. From the sounds coming from the other side, that was exactly where we were- on the other side on the freeway.

Which meant I was a long way from my safe, quiet dorm room.

I could hear metal shifting and clanging as Lucas searched for whatever he was looking for. I guessed I should be scared that he was going to come at me with duct tape and handcuffs, but I wasn't.

The trunk slammed, and I jumped. "It's okay," Lucas whispered as he came up behind me. "Sorry to startle you."

"You didn't," I lied.

"Come here," he said, motioning me to join him along the side of the car. We leaned against the metal just past the back seat window, and Lucas set something on the roof. It was a spotlight, I discovered when he flipped the switch, illuminating a very large section of the wall.

"What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Not for. At," he said, leaning against the car, I leaned next to him and he put his arm on the car behind me, so that his shoulder brushed mine and his forearm was against my back.

I longed to snuggle into his side, but I wasn't ready to make that move.

"What are we looking at?"

"The art."

"The graffiti?"

He shrugged, and I felt it along my shoulder. "I think of it as art. Some of these guys-there taggers- are some of the best artists I've seen."

I looked-really looked-at the wall again. He was right. Amidst the chaos were some really stellar words of art. Some Warhol-inspired sections. An area that had an awesome rendering of the president. Orioles' and Ravens' logos and stuff like that. And bunch of small area with just really cool designs and colours.

But my eyes kept getting distracted by the nonsense of penises and boobs, harshly done with black spray paint. "How can you focus on the good stuff through all of the crap?"

"Ah, Maya," he said, taking a drink from his beer. His hand moved from the car up my back to curve around my shoulder. "That's the secret of life, isn't it? Focusing on the art?"

"And ignoring all the penises and boobs?" I teased.

He chuckled. I was a nice sound, one I hadn't heard before. And from his startled look, maybe one he didn't make very often.

"Well, you don't want to totally ignore the boobs and penises," he said. "They certainly have their place." He gave a pointed look to my chest.

He pulled me closer to him and I burrowed into his side, a place I'd wanted to be since he'd climbed into the back seat with me.

Hell, a place I'd wanted to be since I saw him in the spectator area at the pool as I gave lessons to his little brother.

His hand rubbed my shoulder than moved to my neck, and he lightly grasped my nape. Warm and strong, his hand began to slowly move up and down on the back of my neck, his thumb gently stroking down the side. God, it felt so good. And so much more than I'd ever felt with any boy.

Maybe because Lucas wasn't a boy. And certainly now one of the brown-nosers who just wanted to date me to get in good with my father. Or who were afraid of my father.

"Do you know who my father is?" I asked Lucas.

He looked startled. "No. I don't think so."

"Shawn Hunter?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Should I?"

I wrapped my arms around him, burrowing deeper, laying my head against his broad chest. "No. You shouldn't. Never mind."

He didn't say anything further, just held me tighter. His hand slid from my neck into my messy bun.

"God, I can't wait to see your hair down when it's dry."

I thought about it. He'd only seen me with my hair in a bun in the pool, or after the steam room when it was soaking wet. When loose, my hair is down to my waist and is golden-blonde . But with some natural wave.

"It's almost dry," I said, and took my arms from around Lucas to start pulling out the tie that held up my bun.

He stepped away from me, away from the car, to face me. He watched my face as I took out the bun, focused on my lips as I shook out my nearly dry hair. I fingered through the long tresses, pulling out snarls, while I focused on Lucas's hot gaze.

I bent over at the waist then came up quickly tossing my hair back, like I was a stripper or something. I leaned back against the car, putting my hands on it behind me.

"God damn," he whispered, not getting it all out before his hands were on my face and his mouth was on mine.

He smelled like the freshly laundered cotton of his hoodie and little of...car, I guess. I tasted the beer on his lips, the his tongue swept into my mouth and I stopped thinking about what Lucas Friar tasted like and just kissed him back.

Our tongues danced and played and he tilted his mouth for a better angle, taking the kiss even deeper. I took my hands from the cold metal of the car and placed them on the warm cotton of Lucas's hoodie. I felt the muscles in his chest flex at my touch, but I just wanted to taste him. My entire being focused on the kiss, his mouth on mine, demanding, conquering, yet giving as well. I moaned into his mouth as he nipped my lower lip.

"Jesus, Maya," he said, and took my mouth again. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he stepped closer to me, leaned into me. My fleece pulled up and I could feel the denim of his jeans on my bare belly.

He pushed his hips into me and I felt his erection. I shifted my legs, opening my stance so he could get closer. Closer. It couldn't be close enough. I grabbed on to his hair, running my fingers through it, clutching his neck. I rubbed against him like a cat in heat. "Lucas," I whispered against his mouth, then ran my tongue along his full lips.

"I know, baby," he said. Like he knew how crazy this was, going at it against a car when I barely knew him. He pulled away and put his hands along my face, forcing my to look at him.

I felt dazed, drugged, and it seemed like he did too.

"I know," he repeated, echoing my thoughts. "But I can't..." He didn't say more, just kissed me again. Sweetly at first, as if he didn't want to scare me. Even though my feelings for him- so strong,so fast- were scaring the crap out of me. I kissed him back, trying to let him know I was okay. He figured it out, taking the kiss deeper again, grinding his erection into me as I shifted closer, meeting him.

"Dude, we gotta go," Zay said from his window, which I hadn't even heard being rolled down, as I induced in my Lucas fog as I was.

"What?" Lucas said, pulling away from me. He was in as much of a haze as I was, looking at me as if I'd said the words.

"Dude. Lucas. We've go to go, man," Zay said, causing Lucas to look from me to his friend.

A look passed between them. Lucas nodded. In a flash he'd turned off the spotlight, put it back in the trunk,and herded me around the car to where Riley let us in.

We sped away and back through town.

"Sorry to do that to you man, but I got a call," Zay said, meeting Lucas's eyes in the rear view mirror.

"It's okay," Lucas said. The look he gave me said it was anything but okay-it was full of regret and unfinished business.

He put his arm around me, and I again resisted the urge to crawl into his lap. But this time, I did move very close, and laid a hand across his chest.

His hand played in my hair, occasionally massaging my neck and scalp. It felt incredible.

"Why did we go there?" I asked. He leaned into my neck, nuzzling.

"Wasn't it obvious?"

"No. I mean, why there? How was that place inspiration?"

He took a drink from his beer, draining it. "I like looking at the colours the taggers are using. Some of the designs. It gives me ideas for tiling jobs."

"You mean you're going to do a tile mosaic of the president in my steam room?"

He smiled, placed a soft, warm kiss on my lips, then shook his head. "Nah, I'm thinking more like penises and boobs."

I laughed, reveling in our private joke. Riley and Zay had been silent since we'd gotten back in the car. From the stiff set of Riley's shoulders, I guessed I was looking at more like two months of doing her laundry.

As we got back to the small, swanky area of town, the car slowed down along a row of parked cars. A fancy French restaurant was on one side, a trendy fusion place of the other. Valets were running cars for both places, as the street had no parking. Diners got out of expensive cars and headed into the restaurants.

I hadn't know about this small pocket of town, and figured it'd be about the only area my parents would deign to go to when they'd come to pick me up got break.

Zay pulled the car over onto a side street just past the row of restaurants. In a moment, a valet came over to Zay's window.

I was confused. Were we going to one of these places to eat? Zay and Lucas did not seem the valet-parking kind o guys. More like they'd be the valets themselves.

But no, the valet handed Zay something that I couldn't make out, looking at Riley first, then into the back seat. "Hey, Lucas," he said. Lucas didn't say a word, just gave a slight chin raise to the guy.

"Hour and a half, max," the valet said to Zay.

"Got it," Zay said. The valet stepped away and returned around the block to the restaurants.

"What do you think, Lucas?" Zay said. "Getting any more inspiration?"

"No inspiration here," Lucas said, his voice sure, and with just a touch of steel in it. "Move on, Zay."

"You never know, you might find something that strikes you," Zay said as he put the car in fear and drove.

I cuddled into Lucas, but his hand in my hair had gone still.

"Nope. Not here. Let's just take Maya and Riley home," he said.

The drive home was quiet until just as we were reaching the dorm and Lucas asked me for my phone, Riley got out of the parked car as I handed my phone over to Lucas and he punched in some numbers as he got out and let me past him. His phone rang and he disconnected the call he made to himself.

"There," he said, handing the phone back to me. "Now we have each other's numbers." He looked like he wanted to kiss me, but he just got back into the car and Zay sped off.

"Oh, he's got your number, all right," Riley said as she turned and walked into the dorm.

I stood and watched until I couldn't see the car lights anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally an update! im reaaaaally sorry but I'm in year 11 now and my coursework and exams and me slacking last year is catching up to me fast so i might not be able to update very often but when I do it will be quite long.


	6. Lucas's "Friend"

"Yeah, I'm thinking laundry for two months," Riley predictably said the next day when we were in our one shared class- Intro to Creative Writing.

She'd been blessedly quiet after Lucas and Zay dropped up off at the dorm. Although it helped that she had gotten a phone call from her parents. They'd argued at little, while I'd gotten ready for bed. And when she'd hung up, she'd been too preoccupied to grill me about Lucas.

I'd woken up earlier than her this morning and dressed quietly, not even showering, and left the room before she woke.

But the instructor was late, as usual, and it was obvious that Riley had filled Izzy in during their walk to class, because they'd sat on either side of me and given me "okay, spill" looks the moment they sat down.

"Where is Gardner? You'd think an eleven o'clock class wouldn't be too taxing to get up for. I mean, we usually party on Thursday nights and we make it on time," I said, trying to deflect.

"Yes, that's right, we usually party on Thursday nights. But that's not what we did last night, is it?" Riley said.

I didn't answer. Izzy piped in with, "Well, I did. I wasn't going to stay home just because you dragged Riley to your ghetto love fest." She was teasing, even nudged me, but the words rang true. That area with the graffiti wall was about as ghetto as you could get.

"Hardly a love fest," was my weak answer.

"Please. I didn't turn around- who needs to see gorgeous people making out when I'm stuck with a troll loser- but I could see the car rockin'," Riley said.

Deflecting again, I said, "That's the second time you've called Zay a troll. I think he's kind of cute. In a scruffy kind of way."

She shrugged. "Mean while, you were in the back seat with an Adonis."

"Okay. Laundry for two months," I said, verbally conceding to what I'd already conceded in my head the night before.

Riley looked smug and turned her attention to her phone. Isadora nudged me again. "Riley gave me most of the details on the way here. Just how far did it go on the trunk of the car?" It wasn't plea for juicy details-which we all shared after any kind of hookup. There was concern in Izzy's voice.

"Not very," I said truthfully. But although it was true, we hadn't gone very far, it wasn't exactly the whole truth. Which was...although it was just kissing. I felt a deeper connection to Lucas in even this short time, than I'd ever felt with any other guy. "Just kissing. A tiny bit of grinding." Izzy nodded, waiting for me to go on. I shrugged. "That's it. It was all pretty innocent."

She gave me a cool look. "I don't know. This guy seems out of your world, Maya. Definitely not what you're used to in guys."

"Isn't that the whole point of college? To find new worlds?"

"You're not freakin' Columbus," Riley muttered from my other side, but continued to keep her eyes glued to her phone, her fingers tapping furiously.

"Yes," Izzy. "That is what college is about. But good new worlds. Challenging new worlds. Worlds that help you grow. This..." She waved her hand absently at me. "This is not the kind of new worlds you should be exploring. That world will only hold you back." She said the last bit softly, and I knew she was speaking from experience.

I laid a hand on her arm, gave her a squeeze, then took it away. Izzy and Riley were bit fans of the huggy-touchy stuff, me- not so much. "I'm not planning on immersing myself in Lucas's world. Hell, I don't even know what his world is. We did meet on campus."

"Because he's a janitor," Izzy said, sounding alot like Riley.

A snort from Riley confirmed the comparison.

"Actually, I think he's more than that. I think he does...like...specialty tiling or something."

Another snort from Riley. "And that's supposed to make it better."

Izzy was opening her mouth, and I put my hand out to stop her. "Look. Both of you," I said, and waiting until Riley's fingers stilled and she looked my way. "I appreciate the concern. But...and I say this with all the love I have for you guys...back the hell off."

Riley smiled, returned to her phone, and said softly, "Well, well, Maya does have a backbone. I was thinking you'd lost it."

I should have been pissed at what she said, but I was, in a small way, kind of proud of it. And, in a larger way, I kind of agreed.

Izzy looked like she wanted to say something, but just gave me a nod and turned to her laptop.

"Morning, all," Charlie Gardner said as he entered the classroom. No explanation or apology for being late. And just barely under the wire of time when we could have called "no class" and left.

"Nice of you to show up," Riley muttered under her breath, as she put her phone away and pulled out her laptop.

"Always nice to see you too, Miss Matthews," he replied as he dumped a messenger bag on the desk next to the lectern, then sat on the front of the desk, facing the small class. "Always a pleasure," he drawled in Riley's direction, giving her a "yeah, I heard you, bitch," look, which Riley laughed at.

I don't know what she was like in other classes, but Riley liked to yank Gardner's chain, and openly flirted with him. "I'd climb him like a tree in a second," she'd said after our first day of the Monday-Wednesday-Friday class.

He gave it right back to Riley, but only flirted back once in a while. Which just made her try all the harder. He was a good-looking guy, only a few years older than us (yes I had to put a bit of Riarlie in there- they're my guilty pleasure ship) Apparently he'd been some kind of a bit deal a few years back when he's published a book that was at the time considered his generations's On The Road. I don't think he'd done much since. And if he was down to guest teaching Intro to Creative Writing at College, then my guess was his literary star had fallen hard.

"So. Let's talk about omniscient point of view, shall we?" he said, launching into a discussion I barely heard. I'd have to look at Riley's or Izzy's notes later, because as much Gardner was a piece of eye-candy, my mind could not stay on him all today.

No, my mind was firmly back in front of that tagged-up wall, with my hand in Lucas's hair and his hips grinding into mine.

I googled him. Of course I googled him. But there wasn't much. Apparently he'd been a big deal football player in high school (which explained the rockin' bod and skyscraper height). He's even gone to USC on a scholarship, but apparently had torn something in his shoulder, or elbow, and couldn't catch the ball anymore. Which, as a wide receiver, was pretty much his entire job. Obviously he wasn't still at USC. So he had come back east, back home. And was tiling NYC's steam room.

There was a story there, for sure, but it didn't show up online.

He wasn't on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the other social media sites. I even did a search for "Zay" in conjunction with Lucas Friar. Nada.

Then I googled myself to see what would show up, just in case, on the crazy off chance that Lucas would google me.

Not surprisingly, it was all stuff about my dad, where I would be mentioned in the last line, as part of his bio.

Yep, my entire online footprint was as an afterthought to my father's many political king-making coups. There were a few mentions of me winning swim meets. But that was it. So I would remain as much a mystery to Lucas as he was to me.

Except there wasn't much more to me.

And I knew there was much, much more to Lucas.

I waited until the last possible moment on Friday night to go out with Izzy and Riley. Lucas hadn't called or texted and I didn't want to call him. I'd called guys before, and had nothing against it. But those were guys whom I was sure wanted to hear from me. And although I knew Lucas was attracted to me-he couldn't hide that big erection while he was pressed up against me- I wasn't totally convinced he wanted to see me again so soon.

Or ever.

No. I knew he did. I knew he felt the bone-deep connection that I did. You just couldn't fake that. What I didn't know was if he'd act on it.

I'm not what you need.

He wasn't. I knew that. But I also knew that I'd be available the next time he called.

So we went out on Friday night. Jeff, one of the the kids on the floor below us, had an older brother who lived just off campus in one of the nice apartment complexes. The brother was having a party, and Jeff had been trying to get on Riley's good side from day one, so we were invited.

We partied, Riley drank too much beer and gave poor Jeff no encouragement whatsoever. That didn't keep him from hanging around her all night, feeding her beers and hoping.

Izzy made a play for the older brother, who looked like he'd be stepping into daddy's law firm the moment he passed the bar.

Pretty, entitled rich boy. But basically an okay guy. NYC was full of 'em. I'd grown up with them. But Izzy hadn't. And you could tell she desperately wanted to be part of that. I could have told her it wasn't anything special.

The older brother wasn't biting at Izzy's hook, so she left when Riley and I did. On the walk home, Riley pinballing between Izzy and me, I kept an ear out for a louder, older car, but none came.

A text woke me up the next morning at nine.

You awake?

Lucas.

I snatched the phone off my pillow and texted back that I was. The phone was ringing seconds after the text went through.

"Morning," he said, his deep voice the best wake-up call ever.

"Hi," I said.

"Did my text wake you?"

"No," I said, though it had.

"Liar," he said, a chuckle in his voice.

I smiled. "It's okay. I'm glad you called."

"Late night last night?" he asked. It should have been a routine question for waking someone up at nine, but there was a hint of...just a smidge of...pissiness in his voice. And that pissiness made me tingle with excitement.

"Not too late," I said, not willing to let him off the hook quite yet.

"How late is not too late?"

"Well, since I didn't hear from you, I'm not sure you get to know."

There was silence, and I panicked that maybe I'd gone too far. But I held my ground-something I probably wouldn't have done with another guy.

"You're right. I don't get to know." I waited. "Listen, I'm taking Andy swimming today. They have open swim time until two, and I can take him now that I'm a NYC employee."

"That's nice," I said. "He'll love that." I was trying to figure out if he wanted tips on what Andy should be working on or what.

"Wanna come with us?"

"Swimming? With you and Andy?" I asked, surprised. "You mean as, like, his instructor or something?"

"No. Like...a...friend of mine who's just hanging out with us."

"Umm..." My mind was spinning with what this meant. Would he want me around Andy as Lucas's "friend" if he didn't want me in his life? At least as more than just a hookup against the side of a car?

"You don't have-" he said at the same time I said, "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Really?" he said. For the first time since I'd met him, there was uncertainty in Lucas's voice. It made me even hotter for him.

If that was possible.

"Really," I said softly, but firmly, trying to convey how much I wanted to see him in that once little word.

"I'm borrowing a car. I can pick you up."

"Why don't I meet you there? I can walk."

"Okay. Like, eleven?"

"Eleven is good. I'll meet you at the pool."

"See you then," he said.

"Okay," I said. Neither of us hung up. "Lucas?"

"Yeah?"

"I wasn't out that late," I said. "And I thought of you the whole time," I added, then quickly cut the call.


	7. I'd Never Said Truer Words

Lucas Friar was even more impressive in board shorts. He had one tattoo circling a well-defined bicep. Stark and black, it wasn't barbed wire or a tribal symbol, but a chain of what looked like ivy. On the back of each arm was the number eight.

"Eighty-eight was my number when I played ball," he explained when he caught me looking.

And look I did. My God, what a body. Lean and long, but strongly muscled. His back bore the ink "Andy" very small across his shoulder blade, and I smiled as I saw the name ripple with muscle while Lucas lugged Andy around the shallow end.

"You're doing great, buddy," Lucas said. Andy, of course, was in heaven.

And yeah, so was I.

We played a game of Marco Polo close to the edge so Andy could keep a hand a hand on it if he needed to. By end of our session, he was leaping-albeit with his eyes open-away from the wall a few times to Polo Lucas and me.

"That's it for today, buddy," Lucas said when Billy, who was picking a shift as the lifeguard on duty, called the end to the open swim time. For the last hour we'd been the only ones in the pool. And for the last half-hour I'd swum laps while Lucas worked with Andy on putting his face in the water.

I swam to a corner of the shallow end, where the two brothers were.

"You're an awesome swimmer, Maya," Andy said.

"Thanks, Andy. Keep practicing and you'll be able to swim that long too."

Andy gave me a skeptical look, and it was the first time I saw a resemblance to Lucas. And, I have to say, it was a bit disconcerting.

"She's right. Keep at it, buddy, and you'll be swimming laps with Maya someday."

I noticed the skepticism left Andy's face when Lucas piped in. Serious case of hero worship going on there.

I knew Lucas was no hero, but the way he was with his little brother certainly made his stock rise with me.

And those rock-hard abs didn't hurt his stock, either.

We all moved to the ladder, and Andy scampered up first, then moved to the side of the pool where we'd laid out towels. He wrapped up in one and plunked down on the bench, watching as Billy moved some of the unused lane markers on the other side of the pool.

I moved for the ladder next, but Lucas reached out and wrapped his hands around my waist, pulling me back into him.

"Is it wrong that I got super hard watching you swim?"

I laughed, then let out a sigh as I felt his bulge against my ass, right where he'd positioned me. "If your brother saw, then yes, it would be wrong."

"Good thing he's not opening his eyes under water yet," he said, his voice and husky. My hands were on the metal rail to the ladder. I moved to release them, but a quiet "don't," from Lucas made me stop.

One of his hands moved up from my waist to cup a breast. I looked over at Andy, but he was at the wrong angle to see what was going on. Plus, he was still engrossed in whatever Billy was doing.

"Billy," I said softly, warning.

"He's busy. Beside, I've got your back. Literally."

And he did, leaning that strong chest against my back, making me wish the racer back of my suit was completely gone.

I'd briefly contemplated wearing a bikini to swim today, but thought that might be trying too hard, when I'd always been in a proper swimsuit with Andy before.

But now, God, now I'd give anything to have less Lycra between Lucas and me.

I leaned back into him, keeping my arms on the bars, giving him access to...everything.

One hand continued to knead my breast, shaping, flicking across the nipple as I felt it tighten to sensitive bud. His other hand slipped lower, right now the front of me. Right down to the core of me.

His finger teased the elastic of my suit along my inner thigh. I lifted one leg on the ladder, giving him better access, loving how dangerous it all felt, with Billy on the other side of the room and Andy just a few yards away.

Loving how Lucas made me feel.

His long finger edged under the elastic, turned and sought. My hands wrapped tighter on the metal bars, wishing it was Lucas I was hanging on to as he teased my outer lips brushed ever so lightly across my slit.

"Maya, are you going to have pizza with us? Lucas said if I put my head under the water three times we can have pizza. And I did it." Andy got off the tile bench and made his way over to us, just as Lucas slipped his hands off my body.

I wanted to scream to Andy. To tell the poor kid to sit the hell back down so his brother could keep his glorious hands all over me. So that I could feel the cool glide of that searching finger deep inside me.

Instead, I rose up the ladder, the steel bars cold against my hot skin.

"I know you did," I said to Andy as I rose from the pool, the water sluicing down my trembling legs. "I saw. I think it was even more than three times." I had no idea-my eyes had been on Lucas's body when he'd been working with Andy-but I took a shot.

Andy's little face beamed, and I knew I'd shot correctly. "I did. Four times!"

"Wow, that's great, Andy," I said, making my way over to the bench, Andy trailing behind me, I grabbed a towel and another one to hand to Lucas. When I turned, he was still in the pool, his eyes firmly planted on my ass. Well, my front now.

I held the towel up to him, my eyes questioning why he was still in the pool. He gave a tiny shake to his head and then eye-pointed to what was undoubtedly a still very hard hard-on.

I was happy to confirm that you indeed could not see anything below the pool's edge from this angel. And also happy to confirm that I got Lucas as turned on as he got me.

Andy was between us with his back to me, so I rubbed my towel slowly across my breast, cupping it and stroking it more than drying my suit.

"You're not helping," Lucas said with a growl, but the heat in his eyes told me he enjoyed the show.

I was about to take it further-Lucas made me want to be bold-when Andy turned back to me, causing me to pat myself dry with the towel like a normal person. Not like someone dying to have Lucas's hands all over them again. And soon.

"So, are you going to have pizza with us?"

I looked past Andy to Lucas, to gauge how I should answer. Did he want me to have pizza with Andy and him? Or was it just helpful for the pool part of their guy day because I was Andy's instructor?

I waited, staring at Lucas, who stared back. I could see a hundred emotions playing across his gorgeous face, but I couldn't read them.

"It's a Saturday night, buddy," he finally said to Andy, though his eyes didn't leave mine. "Maya might have big plans. Might have another party to go to." There was that pissiness again, and it thrilled me.

Childish, I know. But I felt the same way. The thought of Lucas out at a party, no doubt with some girl-or two or three-trying to get with him, made me insane. It was an emotion I had no right to, claim of any kind. And yet...I felt it.

And I knew Lucas felt it too.

"Am I invited for pizza?" I said quietly to Lucas. My chin raised in answer to his tone, challenging him.

"Yes," he said, deep and throaty, at the same time as Andy's sweet little voice said the same thing.

"Then I'd love to come," I said.

"I'd love to watch you...come," Lucas said, with an eighth-grade boy's maturity.

I should have rolled my eyes at the bad pun, and the pervy tone in his voice. Instead, I just looked back at him and mouthed, "You will."

Andy smiled and said, "Yay, Maya's coming." then plucked his towel from the bench and began haphazardly dry himself off.

"Here, let me help," I said, sitting on the bench and motioning for Andy to stand in front of me, which he did.

I took his towel from him and began to dry him off, as I did with the little girls in my swim class when we went into the locker room.

"Probably no sense in doing this now," I said, though I continued to do so. "You're going to take a shower soon and get all wet again."

Andy shrugged his little shoulders, and only turned around and held his arms out from his sides so I could dry his back.

Lucas still watched us from the pool, I assumed still trying to gain control. I silently wished him luck with that, because I seemed to have lost all sense of control from the moment I saw Lucas Friar sitting on these very bleachers.

He rose from the water then. Instead of using the ladder as Andy and I had, he hoisted himself out with his arms onto the side of the pool deck.

God, those glorious arms, bulging and flexing with the weight and effort. Water ran down his muscled chest. I longed to trail my tongue along the ridges and hard muscle that the moisture followed.

I took Andy's scrawny arms in the towel and gave them a quick drying, absently wondering if Lucas's magnificent build came more from his mother or father. If Andy would one day be as big and strong as his older half brother.

As Lucas walked over to use and grabbed his own towel, I tried to remember their mother. She'd brought Andy the first week of lessons but hadn't stayed to talk with me. The week after that, she had again quickly left as soon as Andy was out of the locker room, not waiting to speak with me about Andy's progress. I hadn't even gotten the girls out of the locker room before Andy was gone. Then this past week it had been Lucas, and then Zay, who had picked up Andy from his lesson.

My mind searched for an image on Andy and Lucas's mother, though I had only basically seen the back of her as she'd herded Andy down the hall.

Not that I expected she'd have the build of a college football star, but I seemed to remember her colouring was more like Lucas's -dark-as opposed to Andy's fair hair and skin.

"Okay, buddy, let's get going to Maya can go change," Lucas said, placing his hand on Andy's shoulder.

Andy seemed reluctant to leave the warm petting I was giving him with the towel, but when Lucas placed his hand on Andy's shoulder, the little boy melted into his brother's body, snaking a small arm up and around Lucas's back.

A place I couldn't wait to snake my hands around, too.

"Meet you in front of the locker room?" Lucas said, as we all started moving toward the locker room doors. I waved a goodbye to Billy, who answered with a wave of his own.

"See you in a few," I said as I got to the women's door.

"Maya," Lucas said, and I turned to him. "Don't take too long. I can't wait to...have pizza." His hungry glance up and down my body told me he was going to be having much more than pizza this evening.

"I can't wait, either," I said as I ducked in the door.

I'd never said truer words.


	8. I Want To Know You

"Is this your car?" I asked as we drove away from campus.

"No, it's Zay's, He's letting me borrow it for a while."

It was similar to the one we'd ridden in Thursday night-older, but restored with loving care-but this one was a shiny deep blue instead of candy-apple red.

"Is this a...What did Zay say the other night? A Charger?"

He shook his head, a smile on his face at my lack of car knowledge. "No. This is a 1972 Chevy Camaro. Vastly different."

It didn't look that different to me, other than the colour. "How does Zay own so many cars? What does he do?"

Lucas took a quick look in the rearview mirror into the back seat at Andy, who was looking out the window, seemingly oblivious to Lucas and me.

"Zay is...self-employed," Lucas said to me in a tone that said I'd be smarter to just leave it at that. Which I did.

"Does he fix these cars up himself?"

Lucas nodded. "He's been a car fanatic for as long as I can remember. We'd be on the street playing ball, and Zay would be there, but instead of playing, he's have his head under the hood of a car."

"Playing ball. Something you were pretty good at, right?"

He glanced over at me. "Yeah, I was pretty good. For about a minute."

"Then you got hurt," I said. It wasn't a question. I wanted him to know I knew a little about him, even though there wasn't much to know-at least not online.

He looked in the rearview again as we came to a red light. A smile, so sweet and unplanned, crossed his face. I turned to see what had made Lucas smile. Andy's little strawberry-blond head was lolling against the car window, his seat belt was the only thing holding him upright. His eyes were drooping past half-mast, then flickering, in a valiant effort to try to stay awake. An effort he'd soon lose.

Lucas returned his attention to me-to my statement about him playing ball. He ran a hand across the back of his neck, under his shiny, wet black hair. He eased the car forward when the light turned green, careful not to roar like Zay had, so as not to wake Andy.

"Yeah, I guess it's time for that talk, isn't it?" he said, resignation in his voice.

I so didn't want to be something Lucas resigned himself to. "What talk?" I asked, though I thought I knew what he meant.

"The Life and Times of Lucas Friar," he said, a trace of bitterness creeping through in his voice. "Or, how an A-1 college recruit and NFL hopeful ended up tiling steam rooms in his shithole hometown."

Definite bitterness now.

"We don't have to if you don't want to," I said, though I was dying to hear his story. Dying to know everything I could about the man whose hands made my body sing with tension and arousal.

And yes, made my pulse beat faster and my heart clench when he looked at me with those piercing green eyes.

"No, I'll tell you. It's only fair. Because Maya," he said, his voice dropping to a low and throaty-and oh-so-sexy-whisper. "I want to know everything about you. I want to hear every story. Touch every part of you." He looked at me then, and my blood raced through my veins at his promise. "And taste every inch of your body."

My breathing became heavy, my chest lifted and tightened. Lucas noticed, and when his eyes lifted to my face, I licked my lips and gave him a slight nod.

We both knew what I was agreeing to.

Because Andy was dead to the world, we decided to just go back to their place and order a pizza. I watched as Lucas sweetly carried a sleeping Andy from the car into a four-story apartment building. If I had my bearings-and I wasn't sure I did- we weren't too far from the graffiti wall part of town.

Their apartment was on the second floor. Lucas easily held Andy while pulling out keys and unlocking the apartment door. It looked like a practiced move, and again I racked my brain for memories of the elusive mother. Was Lucas responsible for Andy all the time?

The apartment was small, the main room not much larger than my dorm room. The furniture was old and shabby, but the place was super clean. A tiny kitchen with a table and three chairs on one side. I could see three doors down the hallway, figuring two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Toys were strewn around the small place, mostly trucks. A large flat-screen TV was against one wall on a table that seemed too small for the large screen. Several items sat on the floor around the table, as if they'd been recently displaced by the large TV.

"I'm going to put him down, then order the pizza," Lucas quietly said as he walked down the hallway. He took Andy into the room farthest down the hall.

I dropped my backpack on the floor by the door and made my way to the couch, curling up in one of the corners. I noticed three large boxes tucked neatly behind the chair, out of the way. Yeah, it kind of seemed like somebody with a big-ass TV had just plunked down into this small apartment.

Lucas was back out in a flash, a smile on his gorgeous face. "He is out," he said, "but I know that doesn't last long at this time of day. He's going to wake up starving in about an hour."

His eyes roamed over me. I'd put my NYC Face on over my leggings and tiny tank top in the locker room, so Lucas hadn't seen me without the bulky jacket until now. The way I was sitting had made the hem of my shirt ride up a bit, and his eyes zeroed in on the skin showing. I still had a tiny bit of tan from lifeguarding at the country club last summer, though that was more on my face and arms, since I didn't wear a bikini often, even though it was technically allowed.

Lucas made his way over to me. He was about to sit next to me, then stopped. With a pained look on his face and a sigh, he pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket. "Let me just call and get the pizza. I'm serious, he's going to wake up starving. And Andy may seem like a sweet kid, but he turns into a whiny little shit when he's hungry."

I laughed. "Yeah, well, so do I." He'd been walking away from me, toward the kitchen area, but looked at me over his shoulder at that and smiled.

God, when he smiled at me I just wanted to peel all my clothes off and rub myself all over his big, strong body.

"Somehow I don't see you doing whiny," he said. He went to a drawer, opened it, and started rummaging around what looked to be delivery menus.

My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket and I reached for it on the chair-nothing was very far away in the small room. I pulled it out of my jacket and looked.

Isadora and I going to a party later tonight. Will you be back? Riley had texted.

I looked at Lucas's back, how his broad shoulders tapered down to his waist and how his jeans fit so perfectly . And that ass. Good Lord, where to start on Lucas's ass?

No. Have fun, I texted back.

Lucas turned and walked back to me, a pizza menu in his hand. "What's up?" he said, motioning with his chin to the phone in my hand.

"Nothing," I said. "Just Riley checking in."

"Afraid you came to the dark side of town and disappeared?" He was teasing, but there was something a little serious in his voice. A little defensive, and I knew I'd need to be aware of, and careful of, Lucas's slight insecurity about where he came from.

Hey, we all had out shit to deal with. I knew I certainly did.

"No, not that. She just wanted to know if I wanted to go to a party with her and Smackle-that's out suitemate-later." I had meant to show that Riley wasn't concerned about about my safety, but I realized by the look on Lucas's face that I probably shouldn't have been so honest.

"Do you want to go to the party with them? 'Cause I can bring you home as soon as Andy wakes up. Hell, I can have Mrs. Jankowski come over and stay with Andy and I can take you home right now." He rattled this all off so quickly, I almost didn't grab his hand in time before he'd turned around and walked away from me, presumably to make plans to take me home.

But I did grab his hand, and I held on tight. I even reached out with my other hand, holding his in a tight grip. "Wait. No. No, I don't want to go to the party. I want to stay here." He looked down as he stood over me. A thousand emotions played over his face.

I'm not what you need. His words to me that first night played over in my mind.

He was probably right, but right now I needed nothing as much as I needed Lucas Friar to want to be with me. To want to hug and kiss me. To want to do everything to my body that I wanted to do to his.

I tugged on his hand. "Lucas," I whispered. I leaned back into the corner of the couch, pulling him with me. He didn't resist, but he didn't fall on top of me, either. "I don't want to go to any party tonight. I just want to be with you."

He put a knee on the couch next to my hip. He held out his free hand in front of my phone, like he wanted me to hand it over to him. Did he want to check and make sure I wasn't lying? Would he be that type of guy, always checking my phone? I could see that kind of possessiveness from Lucas, but not that kind of insecurity. But really, how well did I know him?

I gave him my phone, still holding on to him with one hand. He didn't look at it, not even a tiny peek, but took it, and his own and the forgotten pizza menu, and placed them all on the scarred coffee table in front on the couch. He even put both phones face down on the table.

"Won't Andy be whiny if he has to wait for dinner?" I said as Lucas, with the ease and grace of an athlete, lifted his other leg and straddled me. Each of his knees were now on the couch and had me encaged. A cage I was dying to fly into and lock the door behind me.

"I'm willing to put up with an Andy fit if it means I can get my hands on you that much sooner," he said as he towered me. He smiled down at me and I let out an answering sigh, my body melting all the more.

"Me too," I said quietly as I sank further down into the couch. I laid my hands on his legs. The denim of his jeans felt rough and cool, and I was slightly surprised to not feel his body burning up the way mine seemed to be. I slid my hands up his rock-solid thighs, circling around to his ass.

He just looked down at me, but his eyes burned and his nostrils flared as if he could smell me. He probably could-I seemed to be emitting pheromones like I'd just been swimming in them instead of the IM pool.

"We can't...go very far," he said, his voice low and throaty. He cleared his throat and continued, "Seriously. Andy will wake up soon and come running out here. And I just don't want to have that talk with him just yet about why his big brother was naked and on top of Miss Maya." An ever-so-small smile crept across his face even as he undressed me with his eyes, paying particular interest to my chest, and that strip of skin showing below my shirt.

"Okay. So no Naked Big Brother and Miss Maya," I said. I dropped one hand from his ass and I swore I saw him flinch from the loss. I touched the hem of my shirt, brushing the back of my hand across my bare stomach.

Lucas made me want to step out of my passivity. Made me want to be bold. Made me want to stop being the peacemaker and start being the firestarter I used to be. "So, just how far can we go?" My thumb slipped beneath the cool cotton of my white shirt, Lucas's eyes following the motion.

He swallowed hard. I followed the motion with my eyes as it traveled down his throat, wanting to lick that exact spot.

"God. So not far enough," he said. He reached over his shoulder and pulled his hoodie over his head, taking his T-shirt with it. Instinctively I reached out and hung on to the gray cotton T-shirt as he got rid of the hoodie and tossed it on the chair, on top of my jacket.

"What was I thinking?" I said as I pushed the T-shirt up his body, admiring his hard abs like I had when I'd first seen him in his board shorts at the pool. "Get rid of this too." I smoothed across his chest, the T-shirt falling over my hand, hanging up on my wrist. It didn't matter. I could now feel that gloriously warm skin. The only thing better would be to feel it against my bare chest.

"That whole Naked Big Brother thing, remember?" he said, chuckling, as he lowered and adjusted the T-shirt back into place. But he didn't move my hand. Instead he placed his on top of mine, but outside of his shirt.

"Jesus, Maya," he whispered, looking down at me, into my eyes, which surely showed how much I wanted him. "You make me so hard. You drive me crazy. From the first time I saw you."

I looked from his face to the bulge at the front of his jeans. My eyes went back to his. "Me too. From the first time I saw you."

He nodded. He knew. Of course he knew. "That first time," he said, like it had been months ago instead of just days. "When I sat you in your swimsuit, all I could think of was peeling it off you, getting inside you." He made no move, just kept my hand beneath his. His fingers twined with mine, even with the cotton of his shirt between us. His other hand squeezed my hip, then his fingers splayed wide.

"Then I watched you with Andy, with all those kids. And it became more than just wanting to get in your pants." A finger smoothed along the edge of my pants, half on the material of my leggings, half on my skin. He left a trail of fire as he gently brushed that finger along my waistband. "Believe me, I still want to get in your pants, But I want to..." He sighed. I could tell these types of words were hard for a guy like Lucas. Which made me treasure them all the more. I waited for him to continue, lying quietly beneath him, my hands still on his body. "I want to know you, Maya Hart. Really know you." I squeezed the hand that held mine. He took a deep breath then let it out. "And... I want you to know me, too."

I waited, wanting him to know that I got how hard that was for him to say. "I want that too," I said, meaning it more than anything I'd ever said before.


	9. I Think I Just Fell a Little Bit In Love With You

It was a good thing that Lucas insisted on the no Naked Big Brother thing, because Andy came bounding out of his room soon after Lucas announced he wanted to get to know me.

A proclamation that shouldn't seem like that big of a deal, granted. But it was. With Lucas it absolutely was.

I instinctively knew he didn't say that to just anybody. Yeah, he could have been totally playing me. But, gorgeous as he was, Lucas didn't seem to be a player. If anything, I could see that title falling more to Zay than Lucas.

When Lucas heard Andy's door opening-way I did-he was off me with the speed that had earned him a scholarship. Before Andy's little legs had carried him down the hallway, Lucas was on the other side of the couch from me with the pizza menu and phone in his hands.

We ordered the pizza and we all wolfed it down, demolishing two larges. Now that I knew I wouldn't be getting naked with Lucas tonight, I let my appetite run wild, and yeah, probably sublimated one appetite to another.

From the look on Lucas's face as he watched me lick the grease from my lips, then sank his teeth into the thick crust, he was too.

We watched a kid-friendly, Andy tucked between us on the couch. I couldn't even tell you what we watched; my concentration was so not on the television. Lucas had pulled my bun loose as we'd made out way from the kitchen to the couch, and throughout the entire movie he had his arm across the back of the couch, behind Andy, and his hand played with my hair.

His look of regret over Andy's head told me this wasn't how he'd pictured the first time he'd get my hair long and loose and lying with him on his couch.

Having a six-year-old kick me in the hip every time one of the cartoon minions did something funny wasn't exactly how I'd fantasized about it, either.

Around nine, Andy started conking out and Lucas woke him up enough to get him to brush his teeth, put on his jammies and, and say good night to Miss Maya. At the last, Andy seemed to come alive, and ran down the short hallway and launched himself into my arms, his skinny arms wrapping around my neck, much like they did when he didn't want to go under water.

But there was no trepidation now, just pure little-kid emotion. And it was all pointed at me. "Thanks, Maya," he said, smacking me on the cheek. "Thanks for going swimming with us." He didn't let go, and I hugged him tighter to me.

I had to admit it felt good. Until the night Lucas had kissed me in front of the graffiti, I hadn't been touched-at least deeply touched-since my parents had dropped me off at NYC and my mom had held on tightly as she'd hugged me goodbye.

That day I'd been eager for them to get on the road, not wanting to hear any more of my father's instructions on how to "handle" Riley. But about a week later, when the only other human contact I felt had been quick handshakes with new people, I'd wished I hadn't shed my mom's hug so quickly.

I rubbed Andy's little back, the worn cotton of his pajamas soft and smelling like fabric softener.

"Okay, buddy, say goodnight and let's get to bed," Lucas said, his voice soft but firm.

Andy untangled from me-or me from him-and gave me another peck on the cheek. "See you next lesson," he said, and returned down the hall.

"Yep, see you Tuesday," I called after him, not really sure if kids his age had a good concept of how many days away Tuesday was.

Lucas disappeared with Andy into his room, then came out about twenty minutes later.

"Sorry," he said as he moved to the kitchen and started cleaning up the empty pizza boxes. "We had to do an encore of Where the Wild Things Are tonight. Apparently once just wasn't enough." He moved the dirty plates to the sink, running water over them, but leaving them. He wiped off the table with a dishrag.

It was mesmerizing to watch this god of a man do mundane household tasks. He would seem so much more at home...on a baseball field, I suppose.

And yet...this Lucas was maybe even more attractive. How he was with Andy? Total turn-on, I have to admit, even though I was in no way looking for a guy with as much responsibility as it seemed Lucas was dealing with.

Although the male population NYC, rich and entitled as they were-as we all were-certainly hadn't made my pulse jump off the charts like seeing Lucas in swim trunks had.

"That's okay," I said. "I'm just surprised he'd be able to stay awake for two readings, after all the swimming and pizza."

Lucas looked a little embarrassed. "I think he fell asleep right after I started the second reading, I just didn't realize until I was done. I need to start looking at him more frequently when I'm reading to him." He said the last almost to himself, as if trying to make a mental note.

He came and sat on the couch beside me, in the space Andy had occupied. But he didn't make a move toward me, he just seem content to sit together. I wrapped my hand in his, content as well.

"This is all new to you, then? Putting Andy to bed? Being the one to take him to swim lessons?"

He stretched his long legs, put one hand behind his head for a pillow. "Yeah, I promised you the Life and Times of Lucas Friar, didn't I?"

"You did, but I can take a rain check if you want."

He shook his head, just a tiny bit. "Nah, might as well be tonight. As long as we aren't going to get naked..." He looked at me with a grin, waggling his eyebrows.

"You're the one who said we'd scare the children," I said, teasing.

He let out an exaggerated sigh. "Yes, we mustn't harm the children. They're so impressionable at this age."

I waited, a smile of encouragement on my face.

He sighed again, but this wasn't exaggerated, it was resigned. "Okay. Let's see. Why I'm here taking care of Andy first, or why I'm back in New York and not in the running for the Heisman?" There was bitterness in his voice. I'd heard it before, and it seemed out of place on him. He seemed to have more...peace about his current situation (whatever it was) than most guys I knew would.

"Let's start with Andy and work backwards," I said, trying to steer him toward what I thought would be safer ground. The small smile that crossed his face as I mentioned Andy's name confirmed my choice.

"He's a great kid, right?" he asked. And it really was asking; he didn't seem at all sure.

"Yeah, he's great."

He turned toward me, and draped his arm across the back of the couch behind my head. He placed his other hand on my knee. "You're around other kids his age, other kids that are in the kind of same...situation. Is Andy doing okay? Is he, I don't know, keeping up?"

"You mean with swimming? I mean, he's not too keen to go under water, but that's usually about half the class of kids his age who haven't swum before."

He was nodding with my words. "Right. Right. And we're working on that. Did you see him today? He went under quite a bit."

I smiled, remembering Andy's proclamation. "Four times."

Lucas chuckled. "Right. Four times." He looked toward the kitchen, then down at his work boots. "But what about non-swimming? Does he seem, like, more messed up than any of the other kids?"

Oh, man, we were getting into territory I had no business going into. "I don't...I'm not really-"

"I mean, his teacher says he's doing well, that he's keeping up with the other kids academically." His voice turned to a little sarcasm as he added, "Though I don't know how the hell they measure academics in first grade." His face sobered. "But they do, right? I guess I should know how that's measured, right?"

I put a hand on top of his, still resting on my knee. I could feel his tension, see it in the set of his wide shoulders.

"His teacher will tell you that," I said. "If they say he's doing well, he is. They'd definitely let you know if there was something..." I didn't want to say the word "wrong," and yet that was what this all seemed to be pointing to-something had gone wrong in Andy's life, and Lucas was hoping it hadn't permanently affected the kid.

"So, this is all new for you? Watching Andy, taking care of him?"

He nodded, his eyes still downcast, his head bowed. I longed to reach out and stroke his head, pull him to my chest, but I stayed still.

"Yeah, it's all new. Well, at least the living here." He swept his arm, encompassing the small room. "I've tried to be in Andy's life since he was born. But the past few years I've been kind of...checked out."

"Because you were in California? At USC?"

He nodded, not looking at me. "That. Yeah, at first, that." His shoulders tensed, hunched slightly. "But then..." He looked over at me. "Just how much do you know from wherever you heard it?"

There was no censure in his voice, just a simple question. "I googled you and it said you were highly sought after and went to USC, but left in your junior year after a bad injury. Shoulder, I think?"

He nodded. I thought back to seeing him in the pool. I hadn't noticed any huge scar anywhere. "You had surgery?" He nodded again. "But that didn't help?"

He sat back, sinking deeper into the couch. He moved his hands to cover his face, then lowered them, as if he knew he couldn't hide from whatever he was about to say.

"It helped. Who knows? Maybe I would have played again, but I fucked up."

I held my tongue, though of course I was dying to ask.

"I got into...um..." He took a deep breath and turned his body to face me. Really face me. "I got hooked on Oxy after my surgery. I got kicked out of school."

Wow. I was thinking maybe he got caught cheating on a test to keep up academically or something. A drug habit was beyond my scope. This was a little more than I'd bargained for.

I looked into his eyes, waiting for these strong feelings-which had blossomed so quickly and become so intense-to fade or wilt with the news that he had been (is?) a drug addict.

They didn't. If anything, they deepened, knowing that Lucas was more than just a gorgeous guy who was stepping up with his little brother. He had lived, and changed, much like I had suspected Smackle had.

"Go on," I said.

His shoulders lowered a bit and he licked his lips. I squeezed his hand. "Go on, Lucas. I'm still here. I'm staying here."

"Jesus, Maya," he said in a mere whisper. "I think I just fell a little bit in love with you." His eyes didn't leave mine, and I tried to convey what I could not say.

I was already more than a little bit in love with Lucas Friar.

"Anyway. Word got out. I suppose it wouldn't have looked good for a player-former player-to become hooked on painkillers. They agreed to keep it quiet if I just left school quietly and relinquished my scholarship. I was done with football, anyway. The shoulder wouldn't hold up."

"Could you have at least stayed to get your degree? Could you have-"

He held up a hand to stop me. "No. By that time I wanted to come home. I knew I could..."

"Get drugs here," I finished when he didn't.

He nodded, breaking eye contact, but still stayed turned toward me, still met me hold his hand.

"Oh yeah, the Oxy was easy to get here. I could have called a dozen guys and they'd be on my doorstep in an hour, happy to hand me those awesome pills."

"But you had to pay for them," I said, leading him to the inevitable.

"Yep. And I did...for a while. It was just a matter of time before I got caught or died, or needed something stronger and jumped to heroin or something."

I'd been around drugs in high school. But that was more like pot and the occasional line of cocaine that was rumored to be snorted in the bathroom at a party. Sometimes you'd hear about a kid raiding their parents' medicine cabinet and having a mystery pill-swap party. Ecstasy in clubs, stuff like that. Party drugs. Nothing that was going to derail the oh-so-promising progeny of the political world.

Certainly not heroin.

"But then something happened. My mom...she'd always had...problems with drugs."

"I only saw her a few times at Andy's lessons. And I never even spoke with her."

"Yeah, she got him there, which was about the last thing she was able to handle. She went into rehab a couple of days later and I moved in here."

"So, you've only been...clean five weeks?" I had no idea if "clean"was the word I was looking for. I knew the first time I saw him that I was out of my depth with Lucas Friar, but I now knew I was in way over my head.

No life guarding experience was going to save me this time.

"No. Six months. I haven't used in six months. About the same time I realized my mom had started using again. And about the same time I..."

"Yes?"

He shook his head, and I knew I wasn't going to hear about all the things Lucas did to get money for his habit. Or to buy huge flat-screens.

"It doesn't matter. I knew I had to get my shit together. I didn't do it for me, but I could do it for Andy. That poor kid had it worse that I did at that age, and I just wanted to, I don't know, give him a chance, I guess."

"So you quit the Oxy? Just like that?"

He chuckled. The sound seemed foreign and jarring in the quiet room with such a heavy topic. "Well, not 'just like that,' no. I was pretty shitty for a while. But I made it out the other side. Eventually."

"And...the other stuff? The stuff to get the money?"

"Well, that wasn't as easy to quit because it didn't affect just me. I had interested parties in me still needing money, and they weren't happy."

"Zay."

He shrugged. "Zay's okay. He stood behind me, still does. It was more of the people Zay works for."

Visions of every mafia movie I'd ever watched with my mother played in my mind. "Just how...deep are you in?"

"I'm not. I'm out. I was never 'in' much, anyway, just a...runner, an information gatherer, a cog. There was another guy who needed money right behind me. Shit, there were thirty guys behind me. There are always young guys who need money that are willing to do anything to get it."

"Anything?"

He waved a hand. "No, it wasn't anything heavy. I don't mean to scare you, Maya. It was kid stuff in the scheme of things."

"So..." I needed him to say it, even if I couldn't ask it.

"Nothing that hurt anyone. Cars, money, some property. Everything was insured. And it was from people who could afford it."

"My family are people like that," I said. "My family works very hard for their car, property and money."

"I know," he said softly."I didn't mean it like that. It was wrong. Of course I know it was wrong. I just didn't want you to think I was out whacking people or anything."

I nodded. I knew the difference. And I also knew that Lucas didn't need to tell me any of this, didn't have to be so honest. He was either telling this to me to scare me away, or...or...because he was in as deep as I was and didn't want anything between us.

"And you're completely done with it? With all of it?"

"Yes." I could hear the conviction in his voice. It was the truth, or at least he desperately wanted it to be.

So did I.

"Over. Done. When I saw my mom was back using, I started hanging around here more, making sure she got to work, and that Andy was taken care of. They found out about it where she worked and she was given the choice of going to rehab or being fired. Which probably saved her life. I had some money from...before, and was able to help out for a while.

"Then I got on at NYC. I was able to do third shift 'cause it pays more. It sucks, but it's honest work and the benefits are good." He smiled. "Shit, listen to me talking about benefits. I sound like an old man."

"No," I said, running my hand up and down his arm. "You sound like someone who had responsibilities."

He took my hand, raised it to his mouth, and turned it to kiss my palm.

"How's your mom doing?"

A shadow crossed his face. "I'm not really sure. They're still in the no-contact phase." He said this like I knew the phases of rehab. "I'll get to see her in a week. She wasn't happy about going, but it was the only way to keep her job. And I was moving in to take care of Andy. That was another reason I wanted third shift; it was great hours for Andy's schedule. I can take him to school, sleep while he's there, then pick him up. Some days he does the swim lessons, others we just come home. I get him dinner and to bed. When I have to go to work, my neighbor, Mrs. Svorski, comes and sleeps here."

"Wow, that's nice of her."

He shrugged. "We have a deal. I do some repairs for her and do her grocery shopping and errands and shit like that. She's not big on leaving the building."

"That's really great of you to move back in here to help out."

"The truth is, it's probably saving my life. I knew this was coming as soon as I saw my mom was in trouble. She's been fighting it, on and off, most of my life."

"I was either going to go down the same path, or turn it around right then. Andy made me take a good look at where I was headed."

"And your father? And Andy's?"

"My dad died when I was twelve. Gunshot. Andy's dad is out of the picture. Has been since the married asshole ran out on my mom once he knocked her up."

"Oh," I said. "That sucks."

He put both his hands on my face, cradling it. "I want you to know, Maya, that I would never do something like that. We'll be careful and shit, but if you ever...if we ever...I would never leave you."

"I know you wouldn't," I said, looking into his pleading eyes. "I know you wouldn't, Lucas."

Although the last thing I wanted to think about as a freshman in college was an unwanted pregnancy, I knew that if I was pregnant with his child that Lucas would step up like he had for Andy.

"And thank you for telling me all this. You didn't have to."

He rested his forehead on mine, still holding on to my face with strong callused hands. "Yes, I did, Maya. Yes, I did."

He kissed me, so, so sweetly. It was a kiss full of thanks and acceptance, and I returned it with all the emotions that swirled inside me. I placed my hands on his soft T-shirt, on his chest and abs, feeling his body tense and jump under my touch.

"Maya," he whispered, breaking the kiss, then resuming it with a deeper, probing, devouring melding of mouths and lips. "God, Maya."

I slid my hands under his tee, needing to feel his skin. "How deeply does Andy sleep?" I murmured when Lucas left my mouth and began kissing down my neck.

"Not deeply enough. Not for all the things I want to do to you. Not for how much I want to make you scream my name." As of to prove his point, he nipped at my neck and I let out a moan. A none-too-soft moan at that.

"See?" he said, chuckling, then returned to my neck, his hands sliding from my face down my body, stopping at my waist, where he tugged me toward him.

I swung a leg over and straddled him, finally in the position I'd wanted to be in that night in the back of Zay's car. He sank into the back of the couch, only leaning forward when I tugged at his shirt. He lifted his arms and I peeled the offending cotton of him, again marveling at the sheer perfection of him. And now, I could see the tiny scar at his shoulder. I leaned forward and placed a kiss on it, then continued to strew kisses along his amazing chest.

He smelled faintly of chlorine and the soap they have in dispensers in the showers at the IM building.

"Christ, Maya, you're killing me. We really can't."

"I know. We'll stop," I said, not wanting to.

"Not yet...not yet," he whispered, his hands not leaving my waist and anchoring in my hair. "God, I knew it would be fucking amazing," he said, wrapping his hands deep in it, tugging gently.

I raised my head from his chest, sat up tall. He dropped his hands still holding my hair, causing me to tilt my chin up.

"Christ, you're beautiful," he whispered.

I looked down at him, ducking my head, needing to kiss him again.

And cursing the cute little boy sleeping in the next room.

It wasn't the little boy that drew out session to a swift conclusion, but the noise of a key in the lock and the front door opening.

Before I had even registered what was happening, Lucas had me off his lap and was placing his body in front of mine, even though I had all my clothes on and he was the one naked from the waist up.

It had me wondering who-or what-would walk in Lucas's front door that he felt he needed to protect me from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long, I've just had exams and coursework and it's been really busy.  
> Also my mum's a bitch 'cause she can't accept me for who I am, but that's another issue.  
> Hope you enjoyed... It's ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!!


	10. Dying To Be Fucking Nobody

"Knock much, asshole?" Lucas said to Zay as he entered the apartment.

"I thought I'd wake Andy up," Zay said in a soft voice matching Lucas's. "Hey, Maya," he said in my direction.

"Hi, Zay," I replied as Lucas moved away from me, grabbing his T-shirt from the couch and, sadly, putting it back on.

"You couldn't text me that you were about to go all B&E on me?"

"It's not exactly B&E if I have the keys," Zay said, jingling his keychain before shoving it in his jean pocket. "Besides, I needed to talk to you."

I didn't mention that talking to Lucas could be accomplished via phone. And then my suspicious mind took the turn that perhaps what Zay wanted to talk to Lucas about should not be done on the phone or with texts.

Was Lucas telling me the truth? Was he done with that life?

"There's nothing that we have to talk about that can't be said on a phone," Lucas said, as if reading my thoughts. Or maybe my skeptical look.

"Let's go to your room for a sec," Zay said, starting down the hallway, not even stopping in the living room.

"No," Lucas said, still sitting on the couch with me. Zay turned around and gave Lucas a pointed look. "I mean it, Zay. No. I just got done telling Maya that I wasn't doing...anything I shouldn't anymore."

Zay looked at me with a look I couldn't quite decipher. Partially pissed off, yes. But also with an almost grudging respect. "Do you think that was a good idea?" he asked Lucas. He made his way back to the living room, sitting in a beat-up chair to the side of the couch.

"I trust Maya," Lucas said.

"Yes, but now I have to, too."

"You can," Lucas and I said at the same time.

I rose from the couch, hating to leave Lucas's warm body beside me, but knowing that the whole vibe of the evening had completely changed-first with Lucas's story, and now with Zay showing up. "I think I'm going to take off. It's getting late."

"So many frat boys with roofies to do so little time," Zay said, moving his legs so I could pass by him.

"Shut up, Zay," Lucas and I both said at the same time. Lucas rose and came after me. "Maya, you don't have to leave." He gently held my arm, and I would have loved nothing more than to sink back into his hold, into him. But instead I smiled and said, "I know I don't have to, but it's late, and umm, maybe it's better to not have so much...temptation with Andy in the next room and all."

"Right. Right." Lucas nodded, glancing down the hallway to where Andy slept. "No Naked Big Brother. Got it."

Zay wisely kept his mouth shut at this, and I just nodded and stepped into Lucas's arms, which quickly encircled me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and went on my tiptoes to kiss him lightly. "Call me tomorrow," I said. "If you want," I added.

"Oh, I want," he said. "I want very bad."

I smiled. "Me too," I whispered against his mouth, kissing him one last time.

Stepping away from him, I crossed to my back pack and pulled out my phone. "Do you have a number for a cab? Or is there a bus stand nearby?" I knew he couldn't leave Andy there alone.

"You do not want to stand in his neighborhood for a bus this time of night," Zay said, rising from the chair. "I'll give you a ride to your dorm. Or wherever you're going."

"To my dorm. And I can take a cab. I'll just find a number for one." I started scrolling my phone when Lucas put a hand on mine, stilling my motions.

"No cab is going to come here, either. I can have Zay stay here with Andy and I can give you a ride."

For some reason, I didn't want Zay to be here when Lucas got home from dropping me off. Didn't want Zay to have unlimited time to try and convince Lucas to do whatever plan Zay had come here with.

"That's okay," I said, and turned to Zay. "Your offer still stand?"

"Yeah, can you just give me a second alone with Lucas first?"

Lucas was about to object, but I laid a hand on his chest, the same chest that only moments ago was naked and I was caressing with my mouth. "Sure. I need to use the restroom anyway."

I made my way down the hallway, feeling both sets of eyes on me. Lucas probably watching my ass. Zay probably waiting for me to close the door.

Not even waiting. "Dude, this is a no-brainer. Zero risk. And-" That was all I heard before I shut the bathroom door. I wished it wouldn't have been so obvious with them both watching, or I would have left it open a crack.

And for a small apartment in a shitty part of town, the bathroom door was surprisingly, frustratingly, thick and soundproof.

Taking care of business as quickly as I could, I reentered the living room to see a pissed-off Zay and an at-ease Lucas, and the sight gave me a small rush of relief.

I cared what Lucas did before we met, or course. But what really mattered to me was the man he was now, and that man was taking a shitty job so he'd be able to keep his kid brother in a stable situation.

That was enough for me. For now.

Lucas gave me a goodnight kiss that had me silent for the first five minutes of the ride home with Zay.

Finally, as we made out way through town to campus, he said, "Are we really going to your dorm, or do you want to be dropped somewhere else?"

"My dorm. Like I said."

He shrugged. "I don't give a shit. And I won't tell Lucas if you wanted to be dropped at whatever big bash the elites are gathering at tonight."

I looked at him for a second as he stared at the road. "Are you asking if Riley is at a party?"

His snort of disgust assured me I'd made a direct hit. "Yeah. Right. Like I give a shit what little Miss Silver Spoon is doing tonight."

"You have her wrong you know. She said the other night half a silver spoon, but what she didn't say is that spoon was kept away from her, used like a bargaining chip her whole life."

"Poor baby." His voice was dripping with condescension.

"Some said so, yes."

He looked over at me then. "What do you mean? Who the hell is Riley Matthews anyway?"

I shrugged. "Not my story to tell." I pulled my phone out and dialed, putting it on speaker.

"Where the hell are you?" Riley's voice, slightly slurred, came through. Loud music played in the background. It sounded like some kind of EDM, not the usual folk-lite stuff that played at the smaller parties we'd gone to. "We're having an amazing time, get your ass over here."

"Where are you exactly?" I asked, now wishing I hadn't put the speaker on. But it was a small car and Riley was speaking so loudly that Zay would have heard anyway.

"At that club that Missy told us about."

"How'd you get in?" I asked. Fake IDs weren't unheard of, but if Riley had one and got busted, and I didn't even know about it...I didn't want to imagine the shit storm my parents would rain down on me.

"Riley? How'd you get in?" I asked again.

"Pffft. Easy have got to come, Maya,the dancing is hype."

"Shit" I said to myself. Zay gave me a questioning look."Is Smackle with you?"

"No. But Maya, you'll never guess who's here. Gardner! Can you believe it? I am so going to hit that tonight. He's going to be late for class for sure on Monday-'cause he won't be able to walk!" She laughed loud and boisterously at that. I loved Riley when she was "on" like this. I wished I could be like that more often. But being drunk and underage at a club was not a smart move. And with Gardner there too...

"Would you mind if-" I said to Zay, but he was already turning off the route to the dorm and away from town, toward Chesney, a wealthy town about twenty minutes from us. Most of the faculty from NYC lived in Chesney, not deigning to live in the crappy town where they worked.

"I'm not sure I can get in," I said when we'd reached the club where Riley was partying.

"Don't worry about it. Keep the motor running," he said as he left the car double-parked in front of the club. "Christ, this is really fucking up my night," I heard him say to himself as he shut the car door behind him.

The bouncer approached Zay, motioning to the car. Zay wasn't as big and broad as Lucas, but he wasn't tiny, either. But he was dwarfed by the huge bouncer, who towered over him. He placed a meaty finger in Zay's chest and again motioned to the car where I sat.

I couldn't hear them, even if I had rolled down the window-and I didn't particularly want to. But I could see Zay chatting up the bouncer, waving a hand to me, then a hand at the club.

I sat, debating whether to call Riley again and let her know Zay was coming to get her. Not even knowing whom she was with, I figured a surprise attack from Zay might be the best approach.

It seemed to take forever, and the bouncer glared at me the whole time, while occasionally letting in new arrivals. I noticed everyone who went in was well in their late twenties or thirties, and dressed in expensive club clothes.

This was not a college club, even for those students over twenty-one.

Good God, if my father found out about this. Zay cam out then with Riley in tow. Literally towing her, her arm firmly in his grasp.

She said something to the bouncer and he stepped forward for a second, as if to answer Riley's appeal, until Zay said something. The bouncer left Riley to Zay and sat back down on his stool.

"Maya," she yelled in my ear, wrapping her arms around me as I stepped out of the car to let Riley get in the back seat. "You need to come inside with me. The DJ is totally sick, and I'm soooo close to hooking up with Gardner." She looked across the hood at Zay, who was crossing over to the driver's side.

"Until this asshole showed up." She yanked on my arm. "C'mon, Maya. Come back inside with me."

"We need to get home, Riles," I said, trying to guide her unwilling body to the back seat.

She stumbled a bit and her whole body seemed to heave.

"Unh huh," Zay said, now sitting behind the wheel. "She is not going to chuck in my car."

"I don't 'chuck'," Riley said.

"Yeah, sure you don't. No college freshman getting hammered for the first time ever does," he said, almost to himself.

"It's not the first-"

"You'll have to put her in the front seat, Maya," Zay said to me, as if Riley was a bag of groceries. "Less chance of her getting sick than riding in the back."

I was all for leaving the deadweight of Riley with Zay. I sat her in the front seat and Zay held on to her arm as I eased the seat forward as much as possible with her in it. I squeezed into the back, then put the front seat back into position, Riley flopping back with it.

I tried to reach through the opening, but couldn't reach the door to shut it.

Noticing my inability to get us on our way, Zay softly swore, then moved across the bench front seat, reaching past Riley, and pulled the door close.

That perked the fading Riley back up. "Boob graze! Totally felt that boob graze, ya perv."

"Yeah, highlight of my night," Zay said with disgust. "Grazing your tits has totally made this shitty night worthwhile."

"Well, they are very nice tits," Riley said, letting her head fall back on the headrest and closing her eyes.

A tiny chuckle escaped Zay, almost unwillingly. "Keep your eyes open," he said to Riley in an almost nice voice. "Less chance of getting sick. And buckle up so you don't fall and crack your skull on my dash."

Riley struggled with the seatbelt, needing several tries to make it click. Zay sighed with disgust.

I slid over behind Zay so I could keep a better watch on Riley. Remarkably, she listened to Zay and opened her eyes.

"Riley, how did you even get in there?" I asked. "Who were you with?""

She waved her hand in the air, like coming to be in a much-older club at eighteen was nothing. Maybe it was to Riley. I didn't know a lot about her life before NYC, though I was sure my father would have briefed me on anything...dangerous, if he'd been aware.

"Oh, my lovely Maya," Riley said, not so much slurring her words as singing them. "You don't get to know everything. Don't want you reporting it back to Daddy, do we?"

I stiffened. "I thought we were good the night we did the True Confessions thing," I said.

"Why the fuck would Maya tell your father you got drunk?" Zay interrupted as he drove us away from the club and back to NYC.

"I wouldn't. I don't..." But I let the words trail off. I didn't want to lie to Riley, and I honestly wasn't sure what I would say to her father about this night. Probably nothing.

"Because Maya-poor, poor, beautiful Maya-has been sent to NYC to be my keeper. And unofficial Secret Service agent, if you will."

"I...I'm not..." Again, I couldn't finish.

"S'okay," she said. "We're good. All is cool. No worries."

She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes glassy, but I could still see the brilliant intelligence behind them. "You're just a pawn in this game, Maya, and I get that." She reached her head across the back seat and I instinctively reached for it. She squeezed my hand, then released me, facing forward again. "You probably didn't even want to go to NYC, did you, Maya?"

I sat back in my seat, soaking in Riley's words. "No," I said softly. I didn't want I wanted-but I knew it wasn't NYC.

"Poor, beautiful Maya," Riley said again.

I felt the beginnings of something stir in me. I had tamped down all my anger about not being able to do what I wanted, about having to go to NYC, room with Riley. I told myself that I was just being a good daughter, that I was lucky to even have this opportunity that so many kids didn't

But I was pissed off. And I didn't get pissed off. I was the good daughter, the peacemaker, the girl people pointed to and said, "What a great girl you have there, Shawn," and I would bask in it.

But I wasn't that girl anymore. I could feel a change in myself. Had it started with Lucas, or was totally inappropriate Lucas a by-product of it?

We drove in silence for a while, each digesting our own thoughts after Riley's semi-confession. Finally, as we neared campus, Zay asked the same question he asked of me earlier. "Just who the fuck are you, Riley Matthews?"

Riley had once again rested her head on the headrest, and she turned her head toward Zay, studying him. He met her eyes and it seemed like both of their guards dropped for just a second. Then Riley turned her head forward again, and closed her eyes.

"Nobody," she said. Then she whispered, "God, I'm dying to be fucking nobody."


End file.
